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A  DEFENSE  OF  JUDAISM 


VKRSUS 


PROSELYTIZING  CHRISTIANITY. 


BY 


ISAAC    M.   WISE. 


^i.e, 


i^, 


'•'.... 


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\'^y.     ""**^e 


^, 


1889. 


American  Israelite,  Cincinnati  and  Chicago. 


Entered  According  to  Act  of  Congress,  In  the  year  1889,  by 

ISAAC  M.  WISE, 
lu  the  office  of   the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


stack 
Annex 

3n 

F'  R  E  F  A  C  E . 

fTlHfi!  volume  hereb}'  presented  to  the  reader  was  written 
and  published  in  response  to  those  missionary  cheiftains 
of  the  city  of  CMncinnati  who  took  a  vulgar  renegade  from 
Judaism  by  his  hand,  and  appointed  him  a  missionary  to 
the  Jews ;  and,  notwithstanding  the  man's  illiteracy,  fur- 
nished him  with  a  pulpit,  and  invited  the  Jews  week  after 
wt'ok  by  pompous  advertisements  in  the  public  press  and 
handbills  freely  distributed  in  the  streets,  to  come  and  hear 
that  renegade.  The  author,  considering  that  uncalled-for 
action  of  church  dignitaries  an  insult  to  Judaism,  felt  it  his 
duty  to  resent  it,  and  so  he  did.  Here  is  an  answer  to  the 
main  question,  why  the  Israelite  can  not  embrace  Christian- 
ity. Quite  a  number  of  books  exists,  in  which  the  relative 
points  are  discussed,  although  the  author  recollects  none 
written  from  his  standpoint  of  universal  brotherhood,  univer- 
sal salvation  and  universal  religion,  moral  freedom,  political 
equality  and  the  supremacy  of  reason,  with  the  highest  re- 
spect for  Judaism,  Christianity,  the  Islam  and  every  other 
religion  in  harmony  with  the  postulate  of  reason  and  the 
standard  of  conscience. 

Thk  Aithor. 

CiNcixNATi,  March  26,  1880. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER.  PAGE. 

I.    The  Challenge  Accepte<l  in  Self-Defen?e,        -        -        -  5 
II.     Rejecting  the  Evangelical  Story  from   Historical  Mo- 
tives,          16 

III.  The  Testimony  of  Miracles  is  Inadmissible,          -        -  24 

IV.  The  Doctrine  of  Personal  Immortality,      -        -        -  31 
V.    Universal  Salvation  Without  the  Messiah,    -        -        -  38 

VI.     Mundane   Happiness   Depends    on    Morality,  Not  on 

Christology, 46 

VII.     Mundane  Happiness  Depends  on  Intelligence,  Not  on 

Christology, 54 

VIII.     No  Christology  in  the  Bible, 61 

IX.     No  Christology  in  Moses, 67 

Elohim, 67 

Genesis  i.  26, 69 

Genesis  xiv.  4 ;  xxxii.  25,        -        -        -        -  70 

Genesis  xlviii.  16, 71 

Genesis  xlix.  10,      -        -                 -        -        -  71 

Deuteronomy  xviii.  9-12, 72 

Genesis  ill., 74 

X.    No  Christology  in  Isaiah, 79 

Isaiah  vii    14, 83 

Isaiah  ix.  5,  6, 85 

Isaiah  liii  , 87 

XI.     No  Christology  in  Jeremiah,   -        -        -        -                  -  95 

Jeremiah  xxxi  15-17, 96 

Jeremiah  xxxiii.  14-26. 98 

Jeremiah  xxxi.  31,  e.  s., 101 

XII.     No  Christology  in  Psalms, 107 

Psalm  ii., -  109 

Psalm  ex., 113 

XIII.     A  Resume  and  Reference  to  Zachariah,     -        -        -  121 


CHAPTER  I. 

THK  CHALLENGK  ACCEPTED  I.\  SELF-DEFEXSE. 

JUDAISM  is  the  religion  of  intelligence.  Those  who  be- 
lieve in  one  God,  as  proclaimed  and  defined  by  Abra 
ham,  Moses  and  the  prophets,  and  the  ethical  principles, 
doctrines  and  precepts  contained  in  and  with  logical  neces- 
sity following  from  this  sublime  belief,  believe  in  Judaism. 
They  are  of  Israel  de  jure,  and  if  this  belief  controls  their 
conduct  and  directs  their  performance  of  duty  toward  God 
and  man  they  are  of  Israel  also  de  /acio,  whether  they  know 
it  or  know  it  not,  or,  kno^N-ing  it,  confess  it,  or  confess  it  not, 
whoever  or  whatever  their  ancestors  were.  Judaism  dena- 
tionalized is  universal  religion,  because  it  is  in  full  accord 
and  harmony  with  the  postulate  of  reason  and  the  standard 
of  conscience,  without  permitting  either  one  to  dictate  with- 
out the  consent  and  approbation  of  the  other  factor. 

It  is  perhaps  no  exaggeration  to  maintain  that  there  exist 
now  more  Israelites,  more  conscious  and  unconscious  be- 
lievers in  Judaism,  than  at  any  time  in  man's  history  prior 
to  this  century,  although  no  more  than  ten  millions  of  the 
Hebrew  race  proper  exist  in  the  world.  We  are  reminded  of 
the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  (xliv.  5 1,  "  One  shall  say,  I  am  Jeho- 
vah's; and  another  shall  calT  himself  by  the  name  of  Jacob  ; 
and  another  shall  subscribe  with  his  hand  unto  Jehovah, 
and  surname  himself  by  the  name  of  Israel,''  however  they 
differ  in  forms  of  worship  and  denominational  peculiarities 
According  to  the  statement  of  the  Talmud  mcya  na*3n  "73 
"•Tin'  Nip3  mr.  "  Whoever  discards  Pagan  worship  may  be 
called  a  Yehv.di,''  vulgar,  Jew,  or  also  nnann  me-ya  miDH  "?3 
n^o  minn  •733  rmo  i?N3  "  Whoever  professes  belief  in  the 
Ten  Commandments  is  equal  to  him  who  professes  belief  in 
the  whole  Thorah  "  —  all  of  them  are  entitled  to  the  name  of 
Israel,  if  the  term  Jew  does  not  suit  them. 

(5) 


6  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

Reason  never  goes  begging.  It  is  too  proud,  too  self-con- 
scious to  beg,  and  on  the  other  hand  too  modest  and  too 
considerate  to  impose  upon  others.  Man  sees  and  judges 
others  in  his  own  light.  The  man  of  wisdom  sees  fair  intel- 
ligence in  every  fellow-man  of  whom  he  knows  nothing  to 
the  contrary;  just  as  the  rogue  suspects  cunning  designs  in 
every  neighbor's  speech  or  deeds.  Solomon  said  so  (Pro- 
verbs xxvii.  19  )  and  experience  corroborates  it.  Judaism 
being  the  religion  of  intelligence  could  not  go  begging  for 
proselytes.  Its  expounders'  and  teachers'  estimation  of  hu- 
man nature  and  their  implicit  reliance  and  trust  in  the  in- 
destructibility of  truth,  taught  the  Hebrew  mn  njy  n»K 
"truth  will  take  care  of  itself,"  or  "  yet  truth  -will  triumph,"' 
and  depicted  for  him  that  final  and  universal  triumph  of 
reason  and  goodness  in  the  most  sublime  prophetical  speech. 
The  nations  will  convert  themselves,  and  we  see  now  that 
they  do,  by  the  natural  development  of  intelligence,  in  the 
progress  of  science,  justice,  freedom,  art,  culture,  external 
and  internal,  so  to  reach  the  prophetical  climax  of  "  God 
will  be  king  over  all  the  earth,  that  day  God  will  be  one,  and 
One  his  name  will  be."      (Zachariah  xiv.  9.) 

Again,  the  Israelite,  looking  upon  his  neighbor  from  the 
standpoint  of  Judaism,  can  not  discover  a  sinner  in  every 
human  being.  He  presumes  the  image  of  God  in  every  hu- 
man mind,  a  being  whose  two  spiritual  eyes,  reason  and 
conscience,  are  sound  and  efficient.  Defections  of  mind, 
like  deformities  of  the  body,  are  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule  of  a  normal  and  healthy  state.  All  men  are  intellectual 
and  good  in  proportion  to,  and  to  the  best  of  their  knowl 
edge.  The  Israelite  sees  sinners  only  in  those  exceptional 
persons  who  are  possessed  by  the  demon  of  folly.  There  is 
no  necessity  to  convert  everybody.  He  who  lives  up  to  the 
dictates  of  his  conscience  and  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge, 
the  conscientious  man,  be  he  Jew,  Christian,  Turk  or  heathen, 
philosopher  or  illiterate,  is  no  sinner,  and  needs  none  of  your 
conversion  medicine.  The  Hebrew  necessarily  thinks,  if  you 
give  quantities  of  medicine  to  the  healthy  man,  you  make 
him  sick. 

Furthermore,  the  Israelite  from  liis  stand])oint  can  not 


vs.    I'ROSKJ  YTIZINc;    CHKISTIAXITV.  7 

see  the  gates  of  hell  ajar,  for  everybody  who  fails  to  see 
through  his  neighbor's  spectacles  in  matters  of  religion,  as 
little,  indeed,  as  he  can  discover  the  pavement  in  that  hot 
place,  that  peculiar  concrete  made  of  the  skulls  of  non- 
baptized  children.  The  religion  of  intelligence  could  not 
possibly  suggest  .'*uch  an  unreasonable  dogma.  Starting 
from  the  premises  of  an  all-wise,  all-just  and  all-good  Deity 
and  a  human  family  consisting  of  individuals  essentially 
God-like,  intellectual  and  conscientious,  the  Hebrew  neces- 
sarily arrived  at  the  conclusion  :  DH"?  6?i  D"?lVn  moiN  n»Dn 
N3n  D"?!!?"?  P'n.  '•  All  good  men  will  inherit  their  share  in 
eternal  life  and  bliss."  It  is  neither  necessary  nor  advisable 
to  medicate  a  healthy  man,  to  supply  the  person  of  sound 
limbs  with  crutches,  or  to  show  one  his  way  in  his  own 
house. 

Once,  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabean  princes,  John  Hyrcan 
and  his  son,  Alexander  Jannai,  conquered  tribes  were  given 
the  choice  either  to  leave  the  country  or  to  be  circumcised, 
because  they  were  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  as. was  main- 
tained, upon  whom  circumcision  Avas  incumbent,  and  even 
then  the  most  prominent  teachers  in  Israel,  Simon  ben  She- 
tach  and  Hillel,  protested  against  that  method  of  conversion, 
by  advancing  most  humane  and  intellectual  means  to  that 
end.  In  the  century  in  which  Christianity  is  supposed  to 
have  originated,  many  proselytes  in  the  Roman  and  Parthian 
Empires  attached  themselves  to  Jildaism,  and  among  them 
a  whole  royal  family  and  relatives  of  the  Ca'sars,  as  well  as 
Roman  soldiers  and  Arabian  herdsmen ;  but  they  came  of 
their  own  accord — not  as  invited  guests — as  later  on  many 
thousands,  like  the  Chezars  of  Southern  Russia  attached 
themselves  to  Israel  without  solicitation,  of  their  own  free 
will  and  accord.  Later  on  the  Israelites  might  have  imi- 
tated the  conversion  institutions  of  Christendom  and  the 
Islam,  had  not  Christian  love  and  Mohammedan  generosity 
enacted  stringent  laws  and  spiced  them  with  the  penalty  of 
death,  against  any  Jew  who  converts  a  Gentile,  and  also 
against  such  convert  or  converts.  These  laws  still  exist — 
only  with  a  shade  less  severity—  in  Russia  and  elsewhere, 
and  were  in  force  less  vigorously  in  all  Europe,  outside  of 


8  A    DKF£N«?E    OF    JUDAISM 

ihe  city  of  Amsterdam,  up  to  the  year  1848,  with  some  few 
exceptions.  This  considerably  spoiled  the  Jew's  appetite 
for  proselytes,  and  he  made  no  competition  in  this  branch 
of  business  to  Clu-istians  and  Mohammedans,  which,  we 
think,  is  the  cause  of  its  unsuccessful  operations. 

The  first  conversion  agent  of  the  two  daughter  religions 
Avas  the  sword,  then  came  the  pyre  and  the  torture  with 
their  convincing  arguments,  and  as  civilization  advanced 
they  were  replaced  by  persecution  and  ostracism,  excep- 
tional and  oppressive  laws  or  total  expatriation  for  infidels, 
schismatics,  free  thinkers,  Jews  and  Judaizing  Christians, 
interchanging  now  and  then  with  the  prison  or  mob  law. 
The  progress  of  humanism  changed  the  conversion  tactics 
somewhat  The  brokers  pay  dividends  in  cash  or  promises, 
patronage  or  assistance,  some  form  of  bribery  or  other,  al- 
ways with  the  whip  of  persecution  in  one  hand  and  the 
money  bag  in  the  other.  Although  the  doctors  do  not 
admit  that  all  the  prejudices  against  the  Jew  in  Christendom, 
including  the  modern  Anti-Semitism,  Russian  and  Rouma- 
nian legislation  of  this  kind,  and  the  never-ceasing  antag- 
onism between  Catholic  and  Protestant,  rise  from  the 
conversion  mania  of  Christianity,  the  impracticable  and 
unreasonable  idiosyncrasy,  that  all  men  must  embrace  this 
or  that  form  of  Christianity  ;  yet  it  is  so.  This  is  the  source 
of  most  of  the  evils  under  which  millions  of  human  beings 
groaned,  bled  and  died  in  wars  or  in  dungeons ;  and  is  now 
the  cause  of  hatred,  persecution  and  barbarism. 

If  you  begin  to  think  that  religion  certainly  was  not  given 
lo  man  for  the  benefit  of  God,  for  he  is  perfect  and  exalted 
above  all  influences  rising  from  man,  you  will  certainly  ad- 
mit that  religion  exists  in  human  nature  for  the  benefit  of 
man.  If  so,  it  must  also  be  admitted  that  any  religion,  any 
doctrine  or  institution  of  any  religion,  which  brings  mi.sery, 
sorrow,  affliction,  destruction  of  life  or  happiness  to  a  large 
number  of  human  beings,  is  undoubtedly  an  erroneous,  dan- 
gerous and  unreasoning  superstition,  to  oppose  which  is 
every  good  man's  duty.  If  you  read  on  the  pages  of  history, 
ancient  and  modern,  the  misery,  sorrow,  affliction,  destruc- 
tion of  life  and  happiness  which  the  conversion  mania,  the 


vs.   PUOStl.VTIZIXG    CHRISTIANITY.  9 

proselytizing  fury  did  bring  and  brings  now  over  millions 
of  innocent  men,  women  and  children,  simply  because  they 
can  not  think  with  other  people's  brains  and  would  not  be 
seduced  to  hypocrisy  before  God  and  man,  you  will  be 
forced  to  admit  that  the  conversion  mania  and  proselytizing 
fury  is  an  outrage  on  religion,  is  a  blasphemy  on  the  Most 
High,  a  curse  to  the  cause  of  humanity,  hence  the  reverse, 
the  direct  opposite,  of  true  religion. 

Still  I  do  not  feel  called  upon  to  reform  Christianity  or 
the  Islam,  or  to  resort  to  the  law  of  retaliation.  What  I  do 
feel  called  upon  to  do  is  to  defend  our  own  From  all  sides 
the  gauntlet  is  thrown  out  to  us  by  zealous  men  and  women 
under  the  influence  of  the  same  idiosyncrasy.  From  the 
pulpit,  in  journals,  tracts  and  books,  by  the  learned  and  the 
illiterate,  the  loyal  and  the  renegade,  the  sincere  and  the 
hvpocrite,  the  sane  and  the  insane,  we  are  incessantly  as- 
sailed and  attacked,  wounded  and  mortified  in  the  most 
tender  spots  of  man's  heart.  All  that  is  done  Avith  an  air 
and  mien,  as  though  experience  would  hold  out  the  barest 
possibility  that  the  Jews  could  retrograde  from  Judaism  to 
Christianity,  or  that  Christology  ever  could  become  the 
universal  religion  of  the  human  family.  That  unreasoning 
mania  has  reached  the  very  doors  of  our  temples,  the  abodes 
of  our  neighbors  and  friends,  and  perverts  the  heads  of 
clergymen  to  establish  and  maintain  missions  to  the  Jews, 
of  whom  they  can  not  say  that  they  are  inferior  to  their 
flock  in  piety  or  virtue.  It  is  time  to  defend  our  own,  or 
else  our  silence  might  lead  unsophisticated  people  to  believe 
that  we  groan  under  the  ban  of  ignorance,  superstition  and 
fanaticism,  and  the  conversionists  are  the  truly  good  people. 

Canon  Taylor,  an  English  gentleman,  who  seems  to  be  a 
fierce  opponent  of  the  proselytizing  mania,  boldly  opposes 
that  idiosyncrasy  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  of  London.  He 
forcibly  attempts  to  make  others  see  as  clearly  as  he  himself 
does  the  magnitude  of  the  sham  which  is  perpetrated  under 
the  guise  of  Christian  missions  to  the  so-called  unconverted, 
with, no  other  result  than  the  increase  of  hypocrisy  and  the 
annual  waste  of  ten  millions  of  dollars.  Christianity,  the 
Canon  proves,  makes  no  headway  among  the  heathens,  in 


10  A    DF.P'ENSE    OV   .H'DAISM 

spite  of  the  efforts  of  hundreds  of  paid  missionaries.  The 
few  converts  made  yearly  are  but  as  a  drop  in  the  ocean  when 
compared  with  the  annual  increase  from  natural  causes  of 
the  non-Christian  population — an  increase  which,  according 
to  the  Canon's  computation,  it  would  require  the  united  ef- 
forts of  all  the  missionary  societies  for  a  hundred  and  eighty- 
three  years  to  overtake.  The  results,  poor  as  they  are,  are 
terribly  expensive.  It  costs  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
alone  $15,000  per  annum  to  make  3  000  converts.  China 
lias  a  population  of  hundreds  of  millions,  but  all  the  toll 
it  paid  to  the  society's  agents  for  the  year  was  represented 
by  167  adult  converts,  and  these  cost  about  'fTo.OOO.  Egypt. 
Arabia,  Persia  and  Palestine — the  last  of  course  being  for 
work  among  the  Jews — proved  altogether  sterile  ground. 
The  society  spent  over  $115,000  in  those  countries,  and  has 
nothing  to  show  for  the  money.  Exposures  of  the  missionary 
humbug  (like  this  )  are  not  new  in  England.  They  are  fre- 
quently repeated,  especially  the  missions  to  the  Jews,  which. 
In'  facts  and  dates,  have  been  proved  a  miserable  failure,  so 
that  each  converted  Jew  costs  the  societies  thousands  of  dol- 
lars, for  which  they  have  no  more  to  show  in  London  than 
a  few  salaried  missionaries,  servants  and  colporteurs  taken 
from  the  dregs  of  society  and  turned  into  hypocrites  and 
claqueurs. 

We  need  not  go  to  London  for  proofs  nor  to  the  Berlin 
missionary  organ  (Prof.  Strack's),  in  which  it  was  but  lately 
reported  from  London,  that  besides  salaried  persons  there 
are  no  Christianed  Jews  in  London.  We  have  the  proofs 
right  here  before  us.  Within  the  thirty-four  years  I  had  the 
honor  to  serve  this  community,  one  Jewish  girl  was  cap- 
tured by  a  missionary,  and  that  is  all.  Not  ten  Jewish  per- 
sons were  heard  from  in  all  the  large  cities  of  the  West  that 
had  turned  Christians,  while  I  alone  can  show  in  my  book 
the  names  of  thirty-seven  Christian-born  persons  who  em- 
braced Judaism  without  any  solicitation  or  persuasion  on 
our  part.  And  yet,  besides  the  appointed  missionaries,  al- 
most every  deacon,  parson,  clergyman,  elder,  sexton  teacher, 
every  half-way  truly  good  Christian  man  or  woman,  young 
men's  or  young  women's  associations,  howover  young  or  old 


vs.  PROSELYTIZIXCi    ClIiaSTIANITV.  11 

they  may  bo,  do  besides  their  regular  business  some  mission- 
arv  work,  whenever  an  opportunity  offers,  as  though  perpet- 
u:il  polemics  were  the  only  nutriment  of  sectarianism,  and 
disturbing  others  in  their  religious  convictions,  the  main 
object  of  Christianity. 

It  is  all  Christian  zeal,  says  my  Christian  friend,  as  though 
zeal  ware  not,  where  it  is  contrary  to  reason  and  disobedient 
to  conscience,  a  twin  sister,  or  a  less  violent  form  of  fanati- 
cism; as  thoua;h,  furthermore,  fanaticism  were  not  an 
idiosyncrasy.  The  fanatic  is  as  insane  as  the  infuriated. 
Tliat  the  proselytizing  mania  is  beyond  the  control  of  argu- 
ment is  evident  co  ipso  from  its  blindness  to  the  often-re- 
])cated  facts  of  its  constant  failures  without  taking  any  no- 
tice of  them.  It  is  no  less  evident  from  the  presumption 
that  one  ever  could  honestly  believe  in  the  Christological 
(higmas,  which,  as  St.  Augustine  maintained,  must  be  believed 
l)ecause  they  are  <  b<urd,  contrary  to  the  postulate  of  reason, 
unless  his  intellect  has  been  trained,  drilled  and  habituated 
from  childhood  up  to  deny  and  abnegate  its  right  and  abil- 
ity to  reason  naturally  and  correctly  in  these  particular 
points. 

That  the  proselytizing  idiosyncrasy  is  not  under  the  con- 
trol of  conscience  is  no  less  evident  from  the  following  facts  : 
Conscience  is  the  moral  monitor  in  man  urging  him  to  do 
the  good  and  to  shun  evil  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge,  and 
mourning  subsequently  over  the  perpetration  of  evil  and  re- 
joicing over  the  commission  of  the  good  which  it  urged.  It 
is  unconscious  reason  the  principle  of  optimism,  an  organ 
of  divine  revelation  from  the  universal  to  the  individual 
spirit.  You  may  call  this  the  Hebrew's  definition  of  con- 
science, for  in  Christian  parlance  the  term  is  understood  to 
refer  to  matters  of  religion  chiefly  or  even  exclusive!}-,  which 
is  rather  characteristic.  The  principle  of  optimism  is  changed 
into  a  principle  of  pessimism,  and  unconscious  reason  is 
changed  to  affectation  and  emotion.  It  is  a  change  of  both 
substance  and  accident.  Let  us  consider  the  subject  under 
discussion  from  both  standpoints. 

Aside  of  the  powerful  instinct  of  self-preservation  and 
preservation  of  the  race,  nature,  or  rather  the  God  of  nature, 


12  A  def;-:.\sk  of  judaism 

impressed  every  human  being  with  love  and  consequent 
consciousness  of  duty  and  responsibility  to  his  family. 
Husband  and  wife,  parents  and  children,  brothers  and  sis 
ters,  kinsmen  by  blood  or  marriage,  are  the  members  of  a 
family  particularly  united  by  those  mysterious  ties  of  love 
and  consciousness  of  duty  and  mutual  responsibility.  If 
anything  in  man  can  be  called  holy,  it  is  certainly  this  love 
which  is  exalted  over  space  and  time.  It  is  not  only  the 
richest  source  of  human  happiness,  but  also  the  fundamental 
principle  of  morality,  society,  state,  civilization,  peace  and 
benevolence.  The  Decalogue  begins  man's  duties  to  man 
with  the  divine  command :  "  Honor  thy  father  and  thy 
mother,"  and  human  nature  confirms  it  as  the  first  law  of 
morality.  The  chief  aim— besides  the  universal  one  — of 
the  legislation  of  Moses,  the  speeches  of  the  prophets,  and 
the  teachings  of  the  sages  in  Israel,  was  to  extend  this  love, 
duty  and  responsibility  to  the  whole  house  of  Israel,  to 
make  it  one  family,  without  weakening  or  impairing  in 
anywise  the  fundamental  love  of  man  to  his  family,  and 
history  tells  how  well  they  succeeded  ;  our  benevolent  socie- 
ties and  institutions  all  over  the  habitable  portion  of  the 
globe  tell  the  tale  of  success. 

AVhoever  dares  to  disturb  those  natural  and  beautiful 
family  relations,  alienate  the  affections  or  sense  of  duty  of 
spouses,  parents,  children,* kinsmen  of  any  family  is  a  crim- 
inal before  God  and  man  ;  whoever  carries  sorroAV,  affliction, 
grief  or  pain  into  his  neighbor's  house  is  a  sinner  before  the 
judgment  seat  of  sound  conscience.  None  will  deny  this 
postulate  of  right. 

Cast  a  glance  now  upon  the  work  of  proselytizing  Chris- 
tianity and  behold  this  crime  and  sin  perpetrated  a  thousand 
times  without  any  compunction  of  conscience,  simply  be- 
cause that  mania  is  no  longer  under  the  control  of  con- 
science. Without  diving  into  the  depth  of  history  we  can 
find  plenty  of  facts  to  illustrate  our  allegation  and  to  prove 
it.  When  the  boy  Mortara,  years  ago,  was  forcibly  taken 
from  his  parental  home,  because  a  nurse  professed  that  she 
stealthily  bapti/.ed  the  child  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  it 
was  declared  authoritatively  that  the  Canon  law  was  supe- 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING   CIIIIISTIAXITY.  13 

rior  ill  authority  to  the  natural  law  -  also  to  the  Decalogue 
— and  the  mother's  anguish,  the  father's  grief,  the  family's 
sorrow  the  child's  first  duty,  the  rights  of  man,  the  holiest 
ties  of  nature  Avere  severed  and  set  at  naught  and — the 
Church  had  saved  a  soul.  Yes  with  this  hollow  phrase  upon 
their  lips  the  conversionists  eve-y  day  of  the  year  perpetrate 
any  amount  of  wickedness  besides  the  bribery  which  they 
apply,  the  dissimulation  which  they  practice,  the  serpentile 
seduction  which  they  try,  the  hypocrisy  which  they  cultivate 
— besides  all  that  immorality  they  care  not  for  other  people's 
feelings,  rights  or  sentiments ;  no  family  ties  are  holy  to 
them,  no  sense  of  conjugal,  parental  or  filial  duty  interferes 
with  them,  the  grief,  sorrow  and  afliiction  of  others  are  none 
of  theirs  ;  they  save  a  soul  by  any  diabolic  means,  because 
that  mania  is  no  longer  under  the  control  of  conscience.  Is 
not  this  conclusion  as  sound  as  the  cogilo  ergo  sum? 

As  regards  conscience,  viewed  from  the  religious  aspect,  the 
missionary  work  done  among  Jews  by  orthodox  Christians  is 
no  less  sinful  and  an  abomination  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord, 
All  orthodox  Christians  believe  in  the  divinity  of  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures,  i.  e.,they  profess  to  believe  that  these 
books  are  the  Word  of  God,  dictated  by  the  Almighty  to 
Moses,  the  prophets  and  other  holy  men,  all  of  whom  were 
gifted  with  that  sixth  sense,  the  organ  of  conceiving  directly 
and  instantaneously  the  words  uttered  by  the  Lord  of  the 
Universe.  They,  according  to  their  own  confession,  must 
and  do  believe  much  more  than  the  Hebrews  ever  did— the 
Karaites  excepted — the  most  orthodox  of  whom,  as  laid 
down  in  the  Talmud,  claimed  plenary  inspiration  for  Moses 
only,  hence  only  for  the  Pentateuch  and  not  also  for  the  other 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.*  They  must  con- 
sistently admit  that  every  word  of  those  Scriptures  is  abso- 
lutely true,  every  doctrine  therein  is  true  forever,  every  prom- 
ise and  every  prophecy  of  Scriptures  must  be  literally  fulfilled. 
If  they  fail  in  believing  this,  the  whole  of  orthodox  Chris- 
tianity falls  to  the  ground  L^e  many  other  idealistic  specu- 
lations of  the  Middle  Ages. 


*  We  treat  on   this  point  more  extensively  in  our   forthcoming 
book,  "The  Theology  of  Judaism  " 


14  A    DEFENSE    OF    .HDAISM 

In  these  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  however,  it  is  stated 
plainly  and  repeatedly  that  God  made  a  covenant  with  Is- 
rael, in  which  the  Almighty  promised  to  be  forever  the  God 
and  King  of  Israel,  and  Israel  should  be  forever  his  chosen 
]ieople ;  and  exacted  the  promise,  which  was  solemnly  given, 
that  Israel  should  forever  be  his  servant,  obey  his  laws,  wor- 
ship him  only,  and  naught  besides  him,  perpetuate  his  doc- 
trine and  promulgate  it  among  the  Gentiles,  None  can  begin 
to  deny  that  these  are  the  plain  statements  of  the  Bible  and 
the  covenant  was  made  D'Jiy  IV  '»J'3351  137  "  for  us  and  our 
children  forever"     (Deuter.  xxix.  28.) 

It  is  stated,  furthermore,  and  no  less  plainly,  by  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  that  this  covenant  shall  be  everlasting.* 
Everlasting  like  the  hills  and  the  mountains,  the  laws  gov- 
erning sun,  moon  and  earth,  as  the  prophets  expounded  it. 
Based  on  these  promises  and  prophecies,  it  is  self-under- 
stood, as  the  Rabbis  of  old  have  it,  that  every  Israelite  is 
»yD  n-iD  noiyi  yajJ^O  "  sworn  from  Mount  Sinai  "  to  remain  a 
member  of  the  house  of  Israel,  and  none  can  be  expelled  or 
excommunicate  himself  from  it.  By  the  Avill  of  God  and  the 
testimony  of  sacred  Scriptures  every  Israelite  and  his  de- 
scendants are  obligated  and  sworn  to  remain  faithful  to  their 
colors.  Any  one  who  steps  outside  of  the  family  of  Israel 
is  a  deserter,  a  renegade,  who  perjures  his  ancestors  and  re- 
bels against  the  will  of  God. 

Every  orthodox  Christian  is  bound  to  admit  this  conclu- 
sion from  his  own  premises ;  hence  his  conscience  ought  to 
tell  him  that  it  is  wrong  and  sinful  to  beguile  any  person 
away  from  his  family,  to  counteract  the  Avill  of  God  and 
make  of  an  Israelite  a  perjurer,  deserter  and  renegade,  which 
certainly  does  not  signify  "  to  save  a  soul,"  it  must  rather 
signif}'^  to  send  one  to  perdition.  Therefore  if  their  l)elief 
in  Scriptures  is  correct,  their  conscience  is  dumb,  as  fur  as 


•  See  Leviticus  xxvi  44,45;  Deuter  xxvi  26-19;  xxix  9-14;  xxk. 
1-6,  expounded  by  the  prophets;  Isaiah  ii  1-4;  xlii  5-9;  xliv. 
l-5;li.  l-8;]iv.  9  10;  IvI.  l-8;lix  16-21:  Ix.  18-21 ;  Ixi  8,  9 ;  Ixvi. 
22;  Jeremiah  xxxi  31-37;  xxxii  36-41  ;  xlvi.  28;  xlix.  4,  5;  Ezekiel 
XX  .39-44;  xxxvii.  21-28;  xxxix.  25-20;  Hosea  ii  18-22;  Micah  iv. 
)-7  ;  Zachariah  viii.  rO-23 


vs.   PUOSELVTIZI.\(;  ClIKISTIAMTY.  15 

making  proselytes  among  Hebrews  is  concerned.  We  have 
then  a  right  to  maintain  that  the  proselytizing  mania  is  no 
1  )nger,  or  in  fact  it  never  was,  under  the  control  of  rational 
argument  or  the  dicta  of  conscience;  it  has  become  a  faith 
which  must  l)e  believed  ])ecauseit  is  absurd,  contrary  to  the 
common  sense  of  man  and  tlie  word  of  God. 

We  rise  in  the  name  of  God  and  Israel,  we  do  rise  to  pro- 
test against  that  pernicious  practice,  that  violation  of  divine 
teachings  and  human  rights,  '•  to  open  the  blind  eyes,  to  bring 
out  the  prisoners  from  the  prison,  and  those  that  sit  in  dark- 
ness out  of  the  prison  house."  We  rise  to  state  "  which  way 
dwelleth  the  light,  and  where  the  place  of  darkness  is ;  " 
where  there  is  truth  and  where  speculation  on  legends ; 
where  there  is  salvation  and  where  perdition.  If  we  can  not 
argue  thaD  mania  out  of  the  present  generation,  we  will  at 
least  furnish  some  argument  to  be  used  in  the  coming  gen- 
eration with  l)etter  success. 


CHAPTER  II. 

REJECTING    THli    EVANGELICAL    STORY    FROM    HISTORICAL 
MOTIVES. 


VI/HY  should  you  not  embrace  Christianity?"  the  con- 
*»  versionist  asks,  "if  three  hundred  millions  of  people 
confess  it,  and  among  them  the  most  civilized  and  most 
enlightened  nations?"  We,  in  the  style  of  our  Eastern  fellow- 
citizens,  could  answer  this  question  with  some  other  ques- 
tions, as  for  instance  .  "  If  )■  ou  are  indeed  the  most  civilized 
and  most  enlightened  nations,  how  can  you  believe  the  dog- 
mas of  Christology,  mysteries — as  your  teachers  maintain — 
which  no  man's  understanding  can  grasp,  because  they  are 
contrary  to  reason,  which  even  Martin  Luther  confirms?" 
Your  proposition  seems  to  be  self-contradictory.  Or  Ave  could 
ask,  "  Why  should  you  not  embrace  Judaism,  when  the  most 
distinguished  men  of  God  and  righteousness — as  you  verily 
believe — two  thousand  years  prior  to  the  advent  of  Christian- 
ity, and  three  thousand  years  before  your  ancestors'  conver- 
sion (from  and  after  Charlemagne  in  the  year  800)  to  it,  as 
you  verily  know,  believed  in  Judaism?"  Or,  also,  "  Why  do 
not  the  Musselmans  and  Pagans,  as  you  call  them,  who  are 
four  times  your  number — if  numbers  count  with  you— ask 
you  the  question  why  you  do  not  come  over  to  them,  when 
there  is  certainly  no  more  difference  of  opinion  in  mutters  of 
religion  among  Mohammedans,  Brahmins,  Buddhists,  and 
Zoroasterites  than  there  exists  among  the  Christian  sects?  " 
Nor  can  any  sound  logician  establish  by  evidence  ihe  supe- 
riority of  the  Christological  dogmas  over  those  of  the  Islam, 
Brahminism.  Buddhism  or  Zoroasterism,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  wisdom  of  Confucius  and  the  monotheistic  philosophers 
of  ancient  Greece. 

Still  we  will  not  be  as  unfair  as  some  of  our  Eastern  neigh 
bora  are,  and  answer  one  question  l)v  asking  another.     Nor 
(16) 


A   DEFENSE   OF  JL'DAISM.  It 

will  we  dodge  this  question,  since  it  has  been  asked  by  some 
venerable  and  earnest  men,  and  conversion  generals — men 
and  scholars  who  seem  to  be  unable  to  see  the  moral  hero- 
ism in  the  Jews'  consistency,  faithfulness  and  felf-denial  in 
this  tragedy  of  fifteen  centuries'  duration,  and  console  their 
compatriots  again  and  anon  with  the  stubbornness  and 
s^titf-necked  nature  of  the  Hebrew.  It  seems,  where  truth  and 
principle  are  at  stake,  the  Hebrew  is  rather  stubborn  and 
stiff-necked.  There  is  not  a  man  or  woman,  the  quick  or 
the  dead,  pniong  Christians,  Mohammedans,  Buddhists  or 
the  others,  whose  ancestors,  or  themselves,  have  not  deserted 
and  denied  the  faith  and  the  gods  of  their  forefathers,  at  one 
time  or  another ;  all  of  them  were  renegades,  except  the  Jew, 
who  still  calls  on  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  al- 
though their  remains  have  rested  in  the  cave  of  Machpelah 
so  many  thousand  years  ;  and  so  the  Jew  only  has  the  sat- 
isfaction that  he  can  point  out  the  spot  of  his  ancestors'  sep- 
ulcher,  which  no  prince,  no  king  and  no  pope  in  Christen- 
dom can  do.* 

"\Ve  have  quite  a  number  of  answers  to  make  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  conversionist,  but  can  not  give  more  at  one  time 
than  we  can  argue  in  one  chapter.  Therefore,  we  give  here 
one  answer  first,  reserving  the  others  for  future  discus- 
sion. 

The  Jew  can  not  believe  the  Christological  dogmas,  because 
he  knoics  that  the  story  upon  which  these  dogmas  are  based  is 
not  true  and  can  not  be  true  as  told  by  their  accredited  authors 
and  vnderstood  by  their  dogmatic  expounders. 

The  reader  will  please  bear  in  mind  that  wo  use  the  three 
terms  Christendom,  Christianity  and  Christology  in  their  ex- 
act signification.  Christendom  applies  to  the  aggregate  of 
all  persons  who  confess  or  are  supposed  to  confess  the  relig- 
ion called  Christianity,  without  reference  to  locality,  race  or 

*  This,  according  to  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  of  inheritance,  may  be 
one  of  the  causes  that  the  Christians  love  renegades  so  well,  and 
the  Jews  show  them  no  particular  partiality.  **  The  Greek  is  a 
beautiful  (ami  lascivious?)  boy  ''  .eays  Heine,  "  and  the  Jew  alwa73 
was  an  earnest  man,"  who  hatt-s  fjrces  and  despises  ihe  deserter. 


18  A  DEFENSE  OF  JUDAISM 

color.  Christianity  is  the  religion  called  so,  because  it  is 
believed  that  its  founder  was  the  Messiah,  of  Avhich  term 
Christos  is  the  Greek  and  the  "Annointed  One  "  the  English 
translation,  Christus  is  its  Latin  and  Christ  its  English  equiv- 
alent. It  consists  of  two  distinct  elements,  the  first  of  which 
is  its  monotheistic-ethical  doctrine,  which  is  essentially  Ju- 
daic or  taken  from  the  religion  of  the  ancient  Judea  ;  and  the 
second  is  its  peculiar  dogmas  concerning  the  nature  and 
offices  of  the  Messiah,  and  the  fabric  of  salvation  based 
thereon,  and  is  therefore  called  Christology.  The  question 
of  conversion  involves  only  this  second  element  of  Chris- 
tianity— the  first  element  it  has  in  common  with  Judaism* 
— and  so  it  is  Christology  only  against  which  we  argue. 

It  must  furthermore  be  observed  here,  in  order  to  prevent 
misconstruction,  that  we  distinguish  three  kinds  of  knowl- 
edge, viz  :  subjective,  relative  and  absolute.  We  may  call 
any  knowledge  subjectively  true,  if  it  is  in  full  harmony  with 
all  the  other  knowledge  of  the  same  person ;  then  we  say 
justly,  *'  To  the  best  of  my  knowledge  this  must  be  true." 
It  is  relatively  true,  if  in  full  harmony  with  all  the  other 
knowledge  of  man  ;  then  Ave  say  as  far  as  human  reason  and 
experience  go,  or  rather  have  hitherto  gone,  this  must  be  true. 
It  is  absolutely  true,  if  it  is  with  like  necessity  postulated  by 
the  ultimate  laws  of  nature.  AVe  know  of  no  other  criteria 
of  truth. 

Xo  Christian  reasoner  ever  maintained  that  the  dogmas  of 
Christology  and  the  story  upon  which  they  are  based  belong 
to  the  category  of  absolute  knowledge,  as  with  this  certitude 
they  would  cease  to  be  matters  of  faith.  Nor  could  any  ad- 
vocate of  Christian  faith  reasonably  maintain  that  those 
dogmas  and  that  story  are  relatively  true,  if  he  knows  that 
four-fifths  of  all  men  reject  and  discredit  them.  Most  of  them 
have  been  entirely  unknown  to  human  consciousness  800  to 
1,000  years  ago,  and  all  of  them  were  entirely  unknown  1,800 
years  ago,  while  the  four  doctrines  of  universal  religion  were 
always  present  in  man's  mind,  even  in  Adam  and   Eve,  as 

*  See  the  author's  "  Judaism  and  Christianity,  their  Agreements 
and  Disagreements."    Cincinnati,  Bloch&  Co.,  1882. 


V:^.   PROSELYTIZlXd  rHIUr^TIAXITY  lO' 

Scriptures  maintain.*  Therefore  there  could  be  claimed  for 
Christology  and  the  story  upon  which  it  bases  no  more  than 
subjective  knowledge.  '"  I  know  it  to  be  true,"  the  Christian 
maintains,  because  there  is  nothing  in  his  mind  to  contra- 
dict it.  With  precisely  the  same  reason  and  the  same  right 
the  Hebrew  and  others  maintain  ''  to  know"  that  the  Chris- 
tian dogmas  and  the  story  upon  which  tliey  are  based  are  not 
true,  because  they  do  find  in  their  mind  essential  contradic- 
tions against  those  dogmas  and  that  story.  It  nmst  be  ad- 
mitted, therefore,  that  injustice  and  equity,  neither  God  nor 
man  could  hold  the  Christian  accountable  for  his  belief  or 
the  Hel)row  and  others  for  their  disl)elief.  It  is  an  acknowl- 
edged fact  that  in  all  cases  where  reason  does  not  directly 
suggest  and  demonstrate,  man  thinks  and  believes  analo- 
gous to  what  he  has  most  frequently  heard  and  seen,  per- 
ceived and  conceived,  as  undisputed  truth  and  right.  Among 
a  hundred  thousand  there  may  be  one  perhaps  who  asserts 
his  manhoovl  and  rises  above  and  beyond  his  inherited  dis- 
positions and  acquired  prejudices.  Your  materialistic  phy- 
sicians and  other  naturalists  are  the  best  proof  that  men  of 
learning  also  think  and  believe  that  which  has  long  enough 
been  imposed  upon  them  as  undisputed  truth  and  then  they 
can  scarcely  form  the  idea  how  others  think  and  believe 
otherwise.  Therefore  the  Christian  believes  in  Christianity 
and  the  Jew  does  not.  The  Christian  "  knows  " — subjective- 
ly, of  course — that  the  Christian  story  is  true,  and  the  Jew 
"  knows  "  no  less  and  no  worse  that  it  is  not  true. 

The  matter  being  fairly  presented  to  tlie  average  intelligent 
Hebrew,  he  must  naturally  think,  first  and  foremost :     How 

*  We  formulate  these  four  doctrines  thus : 

1.  There  exists  a  Supreme  Being,  Uving,  mightier  and  higher  than 
any  other  being  known  or  imagined. 

2.  There  exists  in  the  nature  of  that  Supreme  Being  and  in  the 
nature  of  man  the  desire  and  capacity  of  interrelation,  intercommu- 
nication and  mutual  sympathy. 

3  The  good,  right,  beautiful  and  true  are  desirable;  Ihe  oppo- 
site thereof  is  objectionable  and  repugnant  to  the  natures  cf  God 
and  man. 

4.  There  exists  for  man  a  state  of  felicity  or  misery  beyond  this 
state  of  mundane  existence. 


20  A    DEFENSE    OF    JUDAISM 

do  those  neighbors  know  that  the  Evangelical  story  is  true  ? 
Because  their  books,  which  they  consider  lioly  scriptures,  so 
inform  them.  How  do  they  know  that  those  books  are 
really  holy,  that  their  authors  were  men  of  divine  inspiration 
or  even  of  undoubted  veracity  ;  that  they  themselves  were 
eye-witnesses  of  the  story  which  they  describe,  or  that  they 
only  committed  to  writing  what  they  had  heard  of  others  by 
way  of  church  traditions  or  from  then  existing  documents 
of  which  we  possess  no  accounts,  and  if  so,  who  Avere  those 
"  others  "  on  whom  those  writers  relied?  The  answer  to  all 
those  queries  is  :  So  have  we  received  it  from  our  fathers  and 
forefathers,  and  so  did  they  receive  it  from  their  fathers  and 
forefathers  up  to  the  original  apostles,  who  maintain  to  have 
been  the  eye-witnesses  of  the  whole  story.  Then  the  He- 
brew tells  himself,  they  accept  that  entire  belief  on  the  tes- 
timony of  their  fathers  and  forefathers  and  point  in  the 
highest  instance  to  twelve  witnesses  in  whose  veracity  they 
.  place  implicit  faith  ;  we  also  point  to  the  testimony  of  our 
fathers  and  forefathers  and  in  the  highest  instance  to  mil- 
lions of  contemporaries  of  the  apostles,  who  consistently 
and  invariably  deny  the  whole  Christian  story  ;  why  should 
not  we  rather  believe  our  ancestors  than  theirs,  especially  if 
we  know  that  the  testimony  of  an  entire  people  is  much 
more  reliable  than  that  oi  twelve  individuals,  be  they  even 
saints  or  philosophers,  if  we  have  no  guaranty  for  their  state- 
ments besides  their  own  words,  which,  for  all  we  know,  may 
be  the  inventions  of  writers  that  flourished  a  century  post 
festumf  The  Christian,  of  course,  can  argue  against  this 
•common-sense  argument,  but  with  what  success?  Eighteen 
centuries  of  history  reply,  "With  none;"  for  the  Israelites 
to-day,  as  did  their  ancestors  eighteen  centuries  ago,  main- 
tain the  same,  the  Christian  story  is  not  true,  certainly  not, 
as  the  first  writers  narrate  it,  and  the  authors  of  the  dogmas 
expound  it. 

The  Jews'  argument  is  invigorated  by  th^  protests  of  mil- 
lions of  Christians  in  past  centuries  against  the  orthodox 
dogmas  ;  and  in  our  century  especially,  by  the  disputes  and 
controversies  of  tlie  hundreds  of  Christian  sects  now  extant. 
If  von  take  tonethcr  the  sum  of  all  denials  l)v  those  sects 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  21 

nothing  is  left  of  the  whole  orthodox  Christology.  Even- 
one  of  them  denies  something  which  the  others  consider 
essential  to  true  Christianity.  It  would  sound  like  the  voice 
of  the  anti-Christf  if  one  would  compile  all  the  arguments  of 
the  various  sects  against  what  others  consider  essential  to 
Christianity.  Then  come  the  host  of  Christian  anti-Chris- 
tian writers  in  our  century,  whose  books  and  essays  would 
fill  any  church  in  this  city,  who  in  fact  all  argue  the  same 
thing,  that  the  Hebrews'  protest  against  dogmatic  Christian- 
i  y  is  ju.st  and  well  founded.  How  could  the  conversionists 
now  expect  of  the  Israelite  that  he  should  accredit  and 
accept  his  knowledge  of  Christianity  in  preference  to  that  of 
his  own  fathers  and  forefathers  and  over  the  heads  of  those 
millions  of  Christians  who  simply  deny  the  whole  story  and 
the  dogmas  based  on  it? 

Then  if  the  Israelite  can  rise  to  anything  like  a  philosophi- 
cal argument,  he  will  say  Christianity  can  advance  in  its  fa- 
vor the  historical  argument,  it  can  not  and  does  not  appeal 
to  philosophical  demonstration ;  if  such  alleged  facts  are 
true,  ergoj  they  can  be  explained  bv  such  and  such  hypothe- 
ses only  ;  and  in  this  only  argument  in  its  favor  it  falls  de- 
cidedly short  of  Judaism.  The  Sinaic  revelation  is  an- 
nounced as  a  direct  communication  of  the  Deity  to  600,000 
men,  besides  women,  children  and  hoary  heads,  all  of  whom 
saw  the  sights  and  heard  the  sounds,  when  God  made  a 
covenant  with  Israel  and  made  known  to  them  the  object 
and  law  of  that  covenant.  Then  came  their  descendants 
for  3,000  to  3,300  years,  and  confirm  this  tradition  almost 
without  a  dissenting  voice,  until  at  last  Christendom  and 
the  Islam — one-third  of  the  whole  family  of  man — em- 
bracing the  most  civilized  and  most  enlightened  nations, 
rose  to  testify  to  the  Sinaic  revelation  and  the  covenant 
made  at  Horeb.  This  is  historical  testimony,  the  like  of 
which  you  can  adduce  to  no  other  fact  accepted  in  history. 
And  now  comes  the  conversion  agent  of  the  New  Covenant 
and  offers  you  the  historical  testimony  of  Christendom  to 
prove  that  the  New  superceded  the  Old  Covenant.  You  ask 
him.  Did  God  say  so?  he  must  say  no,  but  we  believe  his 
son  did  say  so,  the  son  supplemented,  amended  or  even  sus- 


22  A  DEFENSE  OK  JUDAISM. 

pended  the  Father's  word.  You  must  believe  God  had  a 
son,  a  mother  and  brothers,  because  the  Book  tells  you  so. 
Who  testified  to  the  allegation  of  the  immaculate  concej)- 
tion  besides  Mary?  None.  Who  testified  to  Satan  tempting 
Jesus  on  the  roof  of  the  temple  and  on  that  particular  moun- 
tain from  which  he  could  see  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth? 
None  again.  Who  testified  to  the  resurrection  and  ascen- 
sion of  the  crucified  besides  a  few  women,  and,  according 
to  one  version  of  the  story,  eleven  of  the  twelve  apostles? 
None,  none.  Then  came  the  sects  right  from  the  apostolic 
age  down  to  date,  each  denying  this  or  that  part  of  the 
&tory,  so  that  there  is  hardly  sufiicient  evidence  left  to  i^rove 
•tliat  such  a  person  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ever  existed  on  this 
.globe.  How  can  you  compare  the  evidence  of  Judaism  with 
the  historical  evidence  of  Christianity,  which  is  based  upon 
no  testimony  and  is  denied  by  all  except  the  strictly  ortho- 
dox Christian? 

Says  the  Israelite  :  ''  I  need  not  be  a  prophet  nor  the  son 
of  a  prophet,  nor  even  a  lawyer  or  the  cousin  of  one,  to  see 
clearly  enough  that  your  argument,  opposed  to  ours — as  far 
as  historical  argument  goes — can  not  unsettle  any  Jew  in 
his  conviction  that  as  certain  as  the  Christian  believes  to 
know  that  the  Evangelical  story  and  the  dogmas  based  on 
it  are  true,  so  morally  certain  the  Israelite  knows  that  they 
are  not  true,  and  can  not  be  true  as  narrated  in  the  Book 
and  understood  by  the  authors  of  the  dogmas. 

Such  is  human  nature.  What  appears  to  one  indisputa- 
ble knowledge  in  consequence  of  impressions  received  when 
his  mind  was  yet  unable  to  reason  on  them,  or  he  has  heard 
.often  enough  when  his  mind  was  otherwise  occupied,  and 
accepted  them  on  the  authority  of  others,  appears  to  others 
without  those  impressions  in  his  mind  the  most  incredible 
absurdity.  It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  w^ith  the  same  jus- 
tice and  soundness  of  mind  the  Christian  believes  and  the 
Hebrew  denies  the  Evangelical  story,  as  may  be  the  case 
with  every  other  subjective  knowledge. 


CHAITKPv  ITI. 

THE  TESTIMOXY  OF  MIRACLES  IS  INADMISSIBLE. 

THE  conversionist  approaching  the  Israelite,  the  infidel, 
or  any  other  interesting  subject,  as  the  physician  says, 
to  practice  on  him,  Avill  invariably  plead  miracle,  from  the 
supernatural  standpoint  of  course.  Tiie  heroes  of  the  Evan- 
gelical drama  wrought  astonishing  miracles,  he  maintains, 
and  then  basing  upon  these  premises  he  advances  the  con- 
clusion, therefore  everybody  must  believe  that  whole  fabric 
of  Christology  as  preached  (and  believed?)  by  this  or  that 
particular  sect.  If  one  takes  him  at  his  own  word,  viz  :  If 
those  alleged  miracles  are  incredible  the  entire  Christology 
is  a  conglomeration  of  fallacies,  he  is  stunned,  for  he  knows 
that  millions  of  Christians,  and  among  them  thousands  of 
learned  priests,  preachers  and  celebrated  authors,  never  did 
believe  in  the  New  Testament  miracles.  If  an  honest  census 
could  be  taken  in  any  city  to  ascertain  how  many  church 
members  do  believe  in  those  miracles,  the  result  would  as- 
tonish the  conversion  agents  and  societies  to  learn  what  an 
amount  of  work  is  left  for  them  to  do  among  their  own  con- 
stituents. As  long  as  those  miracles  appear  incredible  to 
persons  born  and  raised  as  Christians,  they  could  not  pos- 
sibly appear  credible  to  the  outsider  born  and  raised  in  a 
faith  which  declares  all  those  miracles  products  of  fiction. 
The  Hebrew  does  not  advance  this  argument,  because  he 
has  a  better  one  ;  he  argues  thus  : 

Miracles  in  general  prove  nothing,  and  opposite  Judaism, 
which  bases  none  of  its  doctrines  on  the  evidence  of  miracles, 
they  are  decidedly  worthless. 

In  regard  to  miracles,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in 
ancient  times,  and  even  now  among  the  illiterate  portions 
of  the  human  family,  arts  and  sciences  being  almost  un- 
known to  them,  manv  a  performance  or  phenomenon  ap- 

(23) 


24  A    DEFENSE    OF    JIDAIS.M 

peared  miraculous  to  them,  which  seem  quite  natural  to  us 
now.  The  writers  reporting  such  supposed  miracles  may 
have  been  honest  men,  who  were  no  more  enlightened  on 
those  points  than  their  illiterate  contemporaries  for  whom 
they  wrote.  Besides,  it  must  be  taken  into  consideration 
that  imagination,  especially  the  bold  and  vivid  imagination 
of  the  oriental  poet,  produces  incidents  and  occurrences  a^ 
mere  tropes,  ornamentations  or  illustrations,  which  in  most 
cases  the  uncritical  reader  takes  for  actual  facts.  Therefore 
every  written  miracle  rouses  in  the  mind  the  two  questions  : 
Was  not  the  writer  ignorant  of  the  natural  cause  underl3dng 
that  miraculous  incident  or  phenomenon?  Is  it  not  the 
writer's  own  poetical  ornamentation  or  illustration  of  a  doc- 
trine, if  we  even  do  not  charge  him  with  wilful  falsehood? 
It  seems  to  us  unjust  and  unfair  to  charge  writers  of  holy 
books  with  wilful  falsehood,  unless  final  evidence  forces  one 
to  the  accusation.  But  then  the  question  arises,  did  the 
writer  intend  to  report  facts,  or  was  his  book  originally  in- 
tended to  be  legendary,  i.  e  ,  written  for  the  purpose  of  being 
read  to  produce  devotion,  wholesome  reflection  and  contem- 
plation?    This  may  be  the  primary  cause  of  all  miracles. 

The  written  miracle  in  proof  of  any  doctrine  requires  two 
acts  of  faith,  one  to  believe  the  miracle  and  another  to  be- 
lieve the  doctrine  which  rests  upon  no  other  proof;  and 
aside  of  this  it  throws  suspicion  on  the  doctrine  which  to 
prove  it  is  intended,  anyhow  with  every  person  least  inclined 
to  skepticism.  He  tells  himself,  If  the  doctrine  is  true,  what 
is  the  use  of  the  miracle?  If  one  is  the  eye-witness  his  mind 
may  be  momentarily  overwhelmed  and  overawed,  to  believe 
a  doctrine  for  which  he  has  no  other  proof,  although  he  must 
know  that  the  miracle  and  the  doctrine  have  no  connection 
whatever  in  logic.  The  reader,  cool  and  composed,  whose 
mind  is  not  overawed  by  black  spots  on  white  paper,  feels 
more  disgusted  than  convinced,  if  he  finds  a  series  of  alleged 
miracles  imposed  upon  him  in  support  of  this  or  that  doc- 
trine, and  inadvertently  tells  himself  that  miracles  prove 
nothing. 

And  now  comes  the  conversionist  and  expects  of  the  He- 
brew to  accept  Christology  as  true  conclusions  based  upon 


vs.  proselytizixct  ciiuistiaxity.  2;> 

solid  facts,  after  he  lias  read  the  Gospels,  which  hegin  and 
end  with  the  hugest  miracles  and  produce  new  miracles  on 
almost  every  page  between  the  first  and  la>;t.  And  what 
kind  of  miracles  !  Some  which  the  testimony  of  thousands 
of  eye-witnesses  could  not  establish,  as  for  instance  Mary 
conceiving  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  being  one  person  of  the  Deity, 
and  her  son  being  also  the  son  of  David,  another  person  of 
the  Deity ;  or  Satan  tempting  the  very  son  of  God,  dragging 
him  about,  arguing  with  him  and  treating  him  like  an  infe- 
rior companion ;  or  that  the  crucified  martyr  rose  from  the 
dead  in  his  very  body,  and  Avith  that  body  he  ascended  to 
heaven  and  sits  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  which  is  also  his 
own  right  hand.  No  Israelite  will  ever  be  able  to  grasp  these 
impossibilities.  Then  comes  the  other  class  of  miracles, 
the  fictitious  character  of  which  wo  all  know.  We  all  know 
that  there  are  no  evil  spirits,  no  unclean  spirits,  no  kinds  of 
demons,  hence  no  such  devils  ever  could  take  possession  of 
any  human  being,  and  so  nobody  could  drive  them  out,  and 
yet  the  New  Testament  is  full  of  exorcism  and  thaumaturgy. 
We  all  know  that  faith  cure,  cure  by  touch,  uttering  magic 
spells,  or  t'..e  passing  shadow,  are  delusive  superstitions,  and 
yet  there  they  are  in  the  Gospels  as  veritabe  miracles.  Then 
come  the  imitated  miracles,  as  reviving  the  dead,  like  Elijah 
and  Elishah  ;  being  buried  three  days  (only  one  and  a  half), 
like  Jonah  in  the  fish;  ascending  to  heaven,  like  Elijah; 
speaking  down  from  a  mountain  to  an  audience  in  the  val- 
ley, like  Moses  speaking  down,  from  Sinai ;  feeding  a  hun- 
gry multitude  with  a  few  fishes  and  loaves,  as  was  done  by 
Elishah,  precisely  the  same  thing  (2  Kings  iv.  42-44).  And 
yet  comes  the  conversionist  and  demands  of  the  Hebrew 
that  he  believe  all  those  miracles,  so  that  he  might  be  able, 
or  rather  prepared,  to  believe  the  fabric  of  Christology  Evi 
dently  he  demands  too  much  of  the  poor  man,  he  could  not 
possibly  believe  all  that,  hence  he  can  not  believe  in  your 
Christology,  unless  he  change  his  whole  mind  from  its  ra- 
tionalistic turn  to  the  mystic  proclivities  of  the  person  born 
and  bred  under  those  peculiar  influences. 

A  main  point  in  support  of  our  thesis  is  that  the  orthodox 
Christian  confesses  that  miracles  prove  nothing,   anyhow 


26  A   DEFENSE    OF    JUDAISM 

not  the  dogmas  of  Christology.  He  believes  the  New  Testa- 
ment miracles,  becaune  they  are  written  in  that  book.  There 
exists  no  other  evidence  supporting  them.  There  are  other 
books  of  the  same  kind,  viz  :  to  teach  religion  and  right- 
eousness, as,  for  instance,  the  Koran,  Zendavesta,  Vedas, 
Kings  and  other  "sacred  books  of  the  East,"  as  Christian 
theologians  of  England  call  them.  In  each  of  these  books 
miracles  arc  recorded,  and  some  of  them  even  bear  a  strik- 
ing resemblance  to  the  evangelical  miracles,  as,  for  instance, 
the  inca'-nation  and  periodioal  resurrection  of  Buddha  or 
the  passions  of  Prometlieus.  And  yet  the  orthodox  Chris- 
tian strenuously  refuses  to  accept  the  doctrines  taught  in 
tiiose  very  books,  exactly  as  the  Israelite  refuses  to  believe 
in  Christology.  All  those  miracles  rest  upon  precisely  the 
same  authority  of  this  or  that  book  or  tradition ;  hence  one 
must  believe  all  or  none.  Believing  none  of  them,  one  is  no 
orthodox  Christian.  Believing  all  of  them,  one  must  believe 
also  all  the  doctrines  taught  in  those  books,  or  he  must  con- 
fess with  us  that  miracles  prove  nothing.  That  is  a  sort  of 
dilemma. 

Says  the  conversion'.st :  Those  pagans,  those  heathens, 
that  unredeemed  human  flesh,  that  fodder  of  Mephistophe- 
les  or  Beelzebub,  invented  a  conglomeration  of  falsehoods, 
no  confidence  can  be  placed  in  their  statements,  and  no  argu- 
ments can  be  based  on  them.  This  is  not  exactly  true,  nor 
are  we  willing  to  subscribe  to  it,  that  the  most  important  of 
human  beings  are  fools  or  knaves,  simply  because  we  believe 
in  the  God-like  nature  of  man.  Still,  we  will  not  argue  the 
question  here.     We  rather  point  to  other  sources. 

The  Hebrews,  the  most  orthodox  Christian  must  admit, 
are  no  pagans,  no  heathens,  no  polytheists,  no  infidels  even. 
They  did  not  lie,  certainly  not  in  olden  times,  when  they 
wrote  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  and  furnished  the  men 
and  material  for  the  New  Testament.  They  were  repeatedly 
redeemed  since  that  Pharaoh  of  old  was  baptized  in  the  Red 
Sea,  so  that  the  very  word  ''our  Redeemer"  is  of  Hebrew 
origin  ;  so  that  Mo.-;cs  could  exclaim  in  the  last  momemts  of 
his  life.  '  Hail  Israel,  who  is  like  unto  thee  a  people  saved 
by  Jehovah  "  (Deuter.  xxxiii.  29),  and  Isaiah  could  repeat : 


vs.  PROSELVTIZlXc;    CHRISTIANITY.  2T 

*'  Israel  is  saved  by  Jehovah,  an  everlasting  salvation "' 
(Isaiah  xlv.  17) ;  and  furthermore  (xlvii.  4)  :  "  Our  redeemer, 
Jehovah  Zebaoth  is  his  name,  the  holy  one  of  Israel."  The 
orthodox  Christian  can  hardly  afford  to  cast  those  Israelites 
of  old  into  the  same  lumber-room  with  the  so-called  pagans, 
heathens,  fetichists  and  polytheists. 

Those  self-same  Hebrews  who  gave  the  Bible  to  the  world- 
produced  also  another  and  much  larger  book  called  the  Tal- 
mud, a  book  which  in  the  main  has  that  much  in  common 
witli  the  New  Testament  that  it  ba.^ies  chieHy  upon  the  Old 
Testament,  expounds  and  expands  the  principles  and  laws 
contained  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  In  the  said  book  we 
read  of  quite  a  number  of  men  who  wrought  stupendous 
miracles.  There  you  find  the  reports  of  Onias  the  Circle- 
digger  and  his  two  grandsons,  Hilkiah  and  Onias  the  Hid- 
den, whose  prayers  for  rain  were  always  and  instantly  effec- 
tive, which  is  certainly  more  miraculous  than  healing  a  man 
of  palsy.  There  you  road  of  Nakdimon  ben  Gorion,  for 
Avhose  special  benefit  the  sun  stood  still  several  hours  as 
once  before  Joshua.  Thvu  you  find  there  the  three  heroes 
of  miracles.  Rabbi  Chanina  ben  Dosa,  Rabbi  Pinchas  ben 
Ya'ir  and  Rabbi  Shimon  ben  Yochai,  whose  miracles  were 
most  stupendous.  One  of  them  was  known  as  an  infallible 
physician  by  prayer  only  and  exclusively  {Bernchoth  34). 
Paul's  snake  miracle  (Acts  xxviii.  4)  was  enacted  by  the 
same  rabbinical  saint.  {Bernchoth  33.)  The  other  commanded 
the  waters  of  a  river  to  be  divided  and  let  him  pass  through, 
and  the  irrational  element  obeyed  hastily.  (Clulin  7.)  The 
third  bid  the  demon  Ben  Thalmion  to  go  to  Rome  from  the 
ship  at  midsea  and  do  there  his  bidding,  ard  the  poor  de^nl 
tremblingly  obeyed.  Quite  a  number  of  miracle-workers 
are  mentioned  in  the  Talmud,  too  numerous  to  be  repeated 
here  One  of  them,  it  is  said,  created  a  calf  by  the  book  of 
Jezirah,  as  large  as  a  two-year-old  animal ;  another  revived 
his  dead  colleague  whom  he  had  slaughtered  accidentally ; 
and  Rabbi  Eliezer  ben  Hvrcan  could  do  almost  anything 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature.  (Baba  Mezia  59.)  Inter- 
course with  the  angels,  with  the  Prophet  Elijah  and  with 
the  Almighty  himself  through  the  medium  of  the  Bath  Kol; 


28  A    DEFENCE    uF    JUDAISM 

wrestling  with  the  angel  of  death,  prevailing  over  that 
mighty  potentate  and  going  alive  to  Paradi.se,  as  did  Rabbi 
Joshua  ben  Levi ;  ascending  to  heaven  to  ask  God's  opinion 
on  important  questions,  like  Rabbi  Ishmael  ben  Elisha,  the 
cotemporary  and  counterpart  of  Paul,*  were  matters  of  fre- 
quent occurrence  with  those  men,  as  is  plainly  narrated  in  the 
Talmud. 

Whoever  believes  the  miracles  of  the  Gospels  must  no  less 
believe  the  miracles  of  the  Talmud.  Whoever  believes  that 
miracles  prove  the  agent  by  whom  or  for  whom  they  were 
wrought  a  man  of  God,  gifted  with  special  power  by  the  Al- 
mighty to  domineer  over  nature's  laws  and  forces,  must  be- 
lieve the  very  same  thing  of  the  miraculous  heroes  of  the  Tal- 
mud. Whoever  believes  that  the  miracles  prove  the  truth  of 
the  Gospel  doctrine,  must  in  fairness  and  honesty  admit  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  Talmud,  proved  by  the  same  sort  of  evi- 
dence, is  no  less  true.  All  those  miraculous  heroes  of  the  Tal- 
mud were  no  Christians,  rejected  the  whole  fabric  of  salva- 
tion, the  entire  system  of  Christology  and  dogmatic  ortho- 
doxy. Here  is  a  dilemma,  a  labyrinth  without  exit ;  either 
you  must  admit,  in  spite  of  Aristotle,  that  a  thing  is  true  and 
also  not  true  at  the  same  time  and  place,  or  you  must  con- 
fess that  miracles  prove  nothing;  you  do  deny  and  abso- 
lutely reject  the  doctrine  of  those  holy  men  of  God  who 
wrought  those  stupendous  miracles,  as  recorded  in  the  Tal- 
mud— we  saj'to  the  conversionist — hence  you  do  admit  and 
confess  that  miracles  prove  nothing ;  how  in  the  world  could 
you  expect  that  miracles  should  prove  to  us  the  truth  of 
Christology?  It  is  all  one  piece  of  inconsistency  and  self- 
contradiction. 

The  conversionist  might  turn  the  same  argument  upon 
the  Israelite  and  advance  the  proposition  :  If  you  believe  the 
miracles  of  the  Talnmd  or  even  if  you  believe  the  miracles 
of  the  Old  Testament,  must  you  not  on-the  same  principle 
believe  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament?  But  then  we 
would  tell  him  that  he  does  not  understand  the  tenor  and 


♦  See  the  author's  "  History  of  the  Hebrews'  Second  Common- 
■wealth." 


Vs^.  PROSELYTIZING  CHRI.STIA.MTV  29 

essence   of   Judaism.     Judaism   acknowledges  no   dogma 
on  the  belief  of  which  salvation  depends.     It  does  not  be- 
lieve any  doctrine  because  it  is  supported  by  a  miracle ;  on 
the  contrary,  it  judges  the  alleged  miracle  by  the  soundness 
of  the  doctrine  which  is  to  be  thus  supported,  and  rejects 
every  miracle  if  the  doctrine  connected  with  it  is  pernicious  ; 
its  standard  is  reason  and  the  Sinaic  revelation.  (Deut.  xiii.) 
The  Israelite  might  believe  all  miracles  which  are  not  con- 
tradictory to  the  postulate  of  reason  and  the  Sinaic  standard, 
but  he  is  not  obliged  to  believe  them  or  be  ostracised  as  an 
infidel  and  heretic.     Judaism  bases  no  dogma  on  any  mira- 
cle.   It  does  not  maintain,  for  instance,  that  Elijah  was? 
more  of  a  son  of  God  than  the  Christian  one,  because  the 
former  rode  to  Heaven  in  a  chariot  of  fire,  drawn  by  steeds 
of  fire,  and  the  latter  had  to  make  the  journey  on  foot.  Nor 
does  it  maintain  that  Elishah  was  greater  than  Jesus  because 
the  latter  could  revive  the  dead  while  he  himself  was  alive 
and  the  former  performed  the  same  feat  after  he  was  dead 
(2  Kings  xiii.  20,  21 ) ;  or  that  Jonah  was  the  greatest  of  the 
two,  because  he  was  buried  in  the  belly  of  the  fish  three  days 
and  three  nights,  and  Jesus  was  buried  but  one  day  and  a 
half  and  one  night  and  a  half.     Judaism  does  not  take  the 
address  of  Balaam's  ass  or  the  beguiling  speech  of  the  ser- 
pent to  Eve  as  the  foundation  of  a  dogma,  as  Christianity 
does  base  its  entire  fabric  of  salvation  on  that  fable,  which 
may  be  explained  in  many  other  ways.     Nor  does  it  attach 
any  faith  to  Moses,  because  he  wrought  miracles ;  it  does 
not  acknowledge   the  evidence  of  miracles ;   it  holds  that 
miracles  prove  nothing,  not  even  to  him  who  believes  them 
literally  and  firmly ;  it  admits  that  miraculous  feats  may  be 
performed  by  false  prophets  or  any  other  kind  of  impostors. 
Opposite  Judaism  the  argument  basing  upon  miracles  is  per- 
fectly worthless,  as  the  greatest  of  all  expounders  of  Judaism 
have  laid  down  as  the  postulate  of  religion.* 

If  the  conversionist  would  advance  that  the  belief  in  the 
Sinaic  revelation  is  also  a  dogma  based  on  a  miracle,  we 
would  reply  that  it  is  not  necessarily  so.     But,  even  if  so,, 

*  See  Maimonides'  Code,  first  book,  chapters  vii.-x. 


30  A  d:i:f1';ns'3  of  .hdajsm. 

we  believe  in  the  Sinaic  revelation  on  account  of  the  sound- 
ness, rationality,  universality  and  pure  humanism  of  the 
doctrine  promulgated  there,  and  not  vice  versa  We  believe 
in  tlie  Sinaic  revelation  on  account  of  the  historical  evidence 
which  supports  it,  the  like  of  which  can  be  adduced  to  a  few 
facts  in  history,  certainly  to  no  miracle  aside  of  the  creation 
of  the  Avorld. 

You  say  then  the  Israelite  is  a  rationalist?  So  ha  is,  in 
regard  to  miracles  anyhow,  although  many  of  them  are  firm 
])elievers  in  miracles  and  believe  also  those  of  the  Talmud. 
Still  none  believe  that  salvation  depends  on  this  or  that  mir- 
acle; hence  aside  of  all  other  considerations  opposite  the 
Hebrew  the  testimony  of  miracles  is  inadmissible,  if  it  be  in- 
tended to  prove  Christology.  He  is  too  far  advanced  in  his 
onward  march  toward  the  postulate  of  reason  to  be  en- 
trapped in  any  sort  of  mysticism. 


niAPTEH   IW 

THE   DOCTRINE  OF  J'ERSONAL  IMMORTALITY. 

MY  friend  Jacob  lives  with  his  family  comfortably  in  his 
own  house,  on  X  Street.  A  real  estate  broker  comes 
to  him  one  day  and  offers  to  him  in  exchange  a  better  house, 
as  the  agent  maintains,  than  the  one  in  which  he  lives.  Mr. 
Jacob  inquires  :  "  Is  that  house  a  more  solid  structure  than 
mine,  is  it  in  a  better  location,  has  it  more  rooms  and  better 
rooms,  has  it  more  air  and  light?"'  The  agent,*of  course, 
affirms  all  this,  but  Mr.  Jacob  knows  well  what  the  agent's 
business  requires  him  to  tell,  and  so  he  goes  to  look  at  the 
house,  and  discovers  that  there  is  notliing  in  that  house 
that  is  not  in  his  own.  while  he  knows  that  his  is  a  strong 
and  solid  building,  and  tlie  house  offered  is  unknown  to 
him  as  to  its  foundation,  its  walls  and  roof,  and  he  says  to 
the  agent,  it  can  not  be  done. 

The  conversion  agent  offers  you  another  house  for  your 
own.  He  must  laud  the  advantages  of  his  offer.  Business 
men  l^elieve  best  what  they  know  liest.  You  go  and  see  the 
house  offered  you  in  exchange,  and  you  will  soon  discover, 
that  the  agent  knew  that  house  but  did  not  know-  yours. 
You  will  soon  discover  that  Christianity  otters  nothing  to 
the  Israelite  which  he  has  not  in  his  own  house,  yet  it  is 
demanded  of  you  to  exchange  your  home  with  its  solid 
foundation  for  a  structure  whose  foundation  is  the  quick- 
sand of  legend  and  myth 

Coming  from  the  general  to  the  particular,  we  lollow  the 
conversion  agent  in  his  own  line  of  argument.  His  first  al- 
legation most  always  is  :  The  Messianic  son  of  Mary  brought 
into  the  world  that  sublime  doctrine,  that  soothing  and 
cheering  belief  of  personal  and  self-conscious  immortality  of 
man,  life  eternal,  self-conscious  life  beyond  the  grave.     Op- 

(31) 


32  A  DEFENSE  OF  .IIDAISM 

posite  this  allegation  wo  advance  fronitlie  basis  ol" authentic 
history  : 

The  conscious7iess  of  immortality  is  innate  to  man,  was  known 
to  and  verily  believed  by  all  nations  prior  to  Socrates,  that  in 
the  scale  of  culture  had  risen  to  the  height  of  intelligible  lan- 
guage, and  loas  no  less  known  to  and  believed  by  Ihe  ancient  He- 
hrews  up  to  prehistoric  times 

The  first  book  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  called  n'E'Kna  lESD  by 
the  Hebrews  and  Genesis  by  the  Greeks,  contains  the  oldest 
records  of  the  human  family.  Adam  and  Eve  and  their  de- 
scendants to  the  tenth  generation  are  recorded  there.  Noah 
and  his  three  sons,  with  their  descendants  to  the  tenth 
generation,  the  sires  of  the  seventy  nations  that  appear  on 
earth  at  the  very  beginning  of  history,  'their  origin,  loca- 
tion and  fate  are  inscribed  there,  saved  from  oblivion  by 
the  first  eleven  chapters  of  that  wonderful  book,  over  whicli 
a  host  of  learned  professors  still  quarrel  and  dispute. 

In  those  ancient  records  we  are  also  informed  what  man 
in  those  primitive  days  thought,  felt  and  believed,  and, 
strange  to  say,  the  rudiments  of  that  which  all  men  always 
did  think,  feel  and  believe,  are  there  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  human  race.  The  belief  in  a  Supreme  Being  who 
gives  commandment  to  man  for  his  own  well-being,  was 
present  in  the  minds  of  the  first  parents. 

The  desire  and  duty  of  man  to  worship  that  Supreme  Being 
is  on  record  in  the  sacrifices  made  by  the  first  men  born  on 
earth,  and  Enosh,  the  grandson  of  Adam,  is  the  head  of  the 
human  family,  when  man  began  to  worship  God  in  words  of 
prayer. 

In  the  same  account  of  primitive  man  the  book  informs 
us  there  was  the  belie T  current  that  God  created  man  in  his 
own  image,  by  giving  to  the  animal  body  the  breath  of  life, 
the  soul  of  man  which  is  of  God,  comes  from  God  and  is  as 
closely  related  to  its  Maker  as  is  the  child  to  its  parent, 
while  the  relation  of  all  things  in  nature  to  their  Maker  is 
only  that  of  a  work  of  art  to  its  artificer.  The  first  man 
knew  that  he  is  of  God  and  in  God,  that  among  all  the  ani- 
mals none  is  like  him,  none  could  be  his  companion,  or  in 
short  the  first  man  knew  that  he  is  a  man,  superior  to  all 


vs.  I'KOSELYTIZIXG    ClIRISTIAMTY.  33 

creatures,  with   the  universe  in  his  consciousness  and  the 
^grant  of  immortality  and  happiness  in  his  soul. 

So  did  and  so  do  now  all  men  think,  feel  and  believe, 
although  some  savages  are  unconscious  of  their  own 
thoughts,  feelings  and  beliefs,  and  others  have  not  the  words 
wlierewith  to  communicate  their  beliefs  to  others  ;  although 
there  are  skeptics  and  atheists  in  the  world  that  expelled 
this  knowledge  out  of  their  souls — very  few  succeed  entirely 
in  this — as  the  criminal  by  steady  practice  and  self-delusion 
deadens  his  conscience.  Yet  there  is  no  nation  on  record 
that  has  no  conception  and  belief,  in  this  or  that  form,  of 
Ood  and  immortality,  as  these  two  beliefs  are  inseparable 
from  one  another.  If  I  am  of  God ,  I  am  in  him.  whatever  is 
of  and  in  God  is  imperishable,  because  he  himself  is  eternal. 
If  I  were  of  water  and  in  water,  I  would  undoubtedly  partake 
of  its  nature ;  the  same  must  be  the  case  with  the  soul.  The 
Chinese,  Hindoos,  Assyrians,  Chaldeans,  Persians,  Syrians, 
Arabs  and  Egyptians,  speaking  of  the  oldest  nations  known, 
confirm  that  the  belief  in  a  Supreme  Being  and  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  is  universally  human,  and  none  has  a 
definite  notion  of  its  beginning.  The  Scythians,  Celts  and 
Teutons,  savage  and  ignorant  as  they  were  in  their  forest 
homes,  held  the  same  beliefs,  only  in  other  forms,  as  did  the 
nations  of  culture.  So  did  and  do  the  American  Indians,  the 
nearest  and  most  accessible  patterns  of  primitive  paganism. 

No  just  man  acquainted  with  these  facts  will  seriously 
maintain  that  the  ancient  Hebrews,  Abraham  and  Moses  in- 
cluded, were  ignorant  of  that  belief  which  was  known  to  all 
And  stands  before  us  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Bible,  of 
which  they  were  the  first  authors.  It  is  not  reasonable  to 
think  that  those  who  bc<iueathed  to  all  the  world  the  highest 
ideas  of  Deity,  righteousness  and  holiness,  creation,  nature 
ixnd  cosmos,  were  ignorant  of  human  nature.  The  only  le- 
gitimate question  in  this  connection  is  :  Why  did  not  Abra- 
hani  and  Moses  speak  more  distinctly  on  this  matter,  or  at 
least  as  distinctly  as  did  the  authors  of  the  Psalms,  Isaiah, 
Ezekicl,  Daniel,  Ecclesiastes,  "Wisdom  of  Solomon,  Macca- 
liees  and  others?  We  can  not  discuss  this  point  here,  as  we 
only  wisii  to  show  that  the  Hebrews,  like  all  other  nations, 


34  A   DEFENSE    oF    JUDAISM 

did  l)elievo  the  immortality  doctrine,  and  knew  not  when, 
where,  or  with  whom  it  originated  ;  although  one  reason  for 
tliis  silence  is  stated  phiinly  enough  in  D^'uteronomy  xxix. 
28.  Moses,  agreeable  to  his  system  of  teaching  and  legisla- 
^-ion,  would  not  go  beyond  the  line  of  induction,  and  this  line 
reaches  not  into  the  region  or  personal  immortality.  Not 
only  is  the  Talmud,  with  its  traditions,  reaching  up  to  the 
beginning  of  the  Maccabean  period,  and  the  ancient  books 
on  which  it  comments,*  brimful  of  the  immortality  doctrine 
in  the  two  forms  of  immortality  of  the  soul  and  resurrection 
of  the  body,  and  nunijrous  legends  l)ased  on  this  belief; 
but  at  a  very  early  date  tlie  dogma  was  established — most 
likely  opposite  the  Grecising  Helenists,  whose  immoi'tality 
doctrine  was  that  of  Socrates  and  Plato — tliat  one  must  be- 
lieve that  the  Thorah  of  Moses  teaches  the  immortality  doc- 
trine. Prior  to  that  time,  about  150  B.  C.  Josephus  informs 
us,  the  three  sects  quarrelled  over  this  doctrine,  the  Pharisees 
held  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  the  Essenes  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  and  the  Sadducees'  belief  in  this  matter 
was  unknown  to  the  historian. f  The  Rabl)is  date  this  con- 
troversy back  to  the  disciples  of  Simon  tiie  Just,  who  died 
2t>2  B.  C.  and  it  appears  from  Ecclesiastes  and  Daniel  that 
it  did  exist  in  their  respective  times.  Sects  do  not  quarrel 
over  the  form  of  a  doctrine  which  is  not  known  and  believed. 
Hence  the  iinmortality  doctrine  existed  among  the  Israelites 
long  before  the  advent  of  Christianit3'.  The  Witch  of  Endor, 
we  are  told  in  the  Book  of  Samuel,];  conjured  the  spirit  of 
Samuel  to  appear  and  to  speak  to  King  Saul ;  must  he  not 
have  believed  in  immortality?  The  prophets  P^lijah  and 
Elishah,  we  are  told  in  Kings,  reanimated  the  dead  children 
of  the  Avidow  at  Zarefath  and  the  celel>rated  Shunamitli. 
must  not  they  have  believed  in  the  incorruptibility  of  tlu- 
soul?     In  I.  Kings  xvii.  17-22  it  is  specially  stated  and  n- 

*  These  books  are,  Mishnah,  Thosephtha,  Mechiltha,  Saphra,  Si- 
phri,  MeguillathThanith,  Seder  O.'am,  Pirkei  Rabbi  Elie/er,  all  ex- 
tant, besides  the  Bible  and  the  book  of  Jesus  ben  Sirach. 

+  Wars  II.  viii. 

}  1  Samuel  xxviii. 


vs.   l'ROSELYTIZlN(;  «HKIST1AXITY.  35 

peated  that  death  means  the  departure  of  the  soul  out  oftlie 
body  (no«5»j  n  mni3  K^nCS  ny),  that  the  soul  is  a  substantial 
being  wliieh  dies  not  (nin  n*?n  &S3  tii  2Vr\)  and  coming  back 
to  the  dead  body  it  reanimates  the  same  (ntri  IT^  K'BJ  apm 
'nM  mp  -?y).  When  that  same  book  tells  us  that  Elijah 
went  alive  to  heaven  to  remain  forever  incorruptible,  and 
that  a  dead  man,  whose  remains  were  thrown  upon  the 
grave  of  Elishah,  was  reanimated,  there  remains  no  douljt 
that  the  Hebrews,  800  B.  C,  knew  and  believed  the  immor- 
tality doctrine.  Could  one  l)e  a  prophet  and  feel  the  presence 
of  God  in  liis  inspired  mind,  or  behold  the  glory  of  the  Eter- 
nal in  his  soul,  as  did  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel,  and  not  know  that 
he  is  of  God  and  in  God,  hence  an  imperishable  God-like 
creature?     It  seems  impossible. 

It  must  be  admitted,  therefore,  as  far  as  the  Israelites  were 
concerned,  it  was  not  necessary  for  the  Gospel  writers  to  let 
an  innttcent  man  be  crucified  and  pierced  witli  a  spear  to 
prove  him  ]jeing  really  dead,  in  order  to  let  him  then  res- 
lu'rect  and  leave  the  realm  of  death,  to  serve  as  an  ocular  de- 
monstratiini  of  man's  immortal  nature ;  it  was  known  and 
believed  long  Ijefore  the  crucifixion.  Those  who  believe  by 
miracles  had  enough  to  convince  them  in  the  miraculous 
performances  of  Elijah  and  Elishah;  and  those  who  base 
their  beliefs  on  the  higher  plane  of  rationalistic  grounds,  at- 
tach little  importance  in  spiritual  matters  to  ocular  demon- 
stration, and  would  certainly  not  believe  the  Christian  resur- 
rection miracle.  Thousands  of  men  and  women  maintained 
to  have  seen  ghosts,  phantoms*  in  every  form,  and  testified 
loudly  and  emphatically  to  the  reality  of  their  visions,  with- 
out convincing  intelligent  people  that  such  was  the  fact ; 
how  could  it  be  expected  that  the  testimony  of  some  women 
and  a  few  disciples  to  the  same  effect  could  convince  any- 
l)ody,  especially  if  he  must  rely  on  written  reports — the  wit- 
nesses being  dead — which  are  contradictory  to  man's  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  of  nature? 

In  the  face  of  the  indisputed  facts,  that  the  heathen  na- 
tions the  world  over,  both  ancient  and  modern,  knew  and 
lielieved  in  a  conscious  existence  of  man  beyond  tln'!  grave, 
long  before  they  had  any  knowledge  of  Christianity,  long  be- 


36  A   DEFENSE    OK   JrDAISM 

fore  it  existed,  the  position  that  the  New  Testament  brought 
this  doctrine  to  sinful  humanity  must  be  abandoned  as  un- 
tenable. In  the  Epistles  of  Paul  it  is  maintained  that  it  was 
the  Pharisean  belief  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  which  was 
preached  to  the  heathens  as  a  new  doctrine,  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul  being  well  known  to  them  and  universally  be- 
lieved. (Romans  viii.  2.) 

The  Evangelist  Mark  felt  this  defect  in  the  evangelical 
teachings.  Besides  the  Messianic  pretensions  and  the  per- 
sonal aggradizements  of  the  main  hero  there  was  nothing  of 
importance  in  it  that  was  at  all  new  to  the  Jews,  and  that 
which  was  new  they  could  not  believe.  Therefore  he,  with 
Paul  as  his  guide,  laid  particular  stress  upon  believing  the 
Messianic  story  (faith  with  Paul),  and  let  his  Messiah  him- 
self, after  his  resurrection,  as  almost  his  last  words  on  earth, 
say  to  his  disciples  :  "  He  that  belioveth  and  is  baptized 
shall  be  saved ;  but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned." 
This  is  very  pathetic  and  emphatic,  although  there  are  some 
mistakes  in  it.  It  was  not  said  by  the  Messiah  to  the  Jews, 
but  by  Paul  to  the  Gentiles  (Romans  x.  9)  without  the  word 
baptized,  however,  on  which  neither  of  them  put  any  such 
stress.  The  other  evangelists  evidently  did  not  believe 
!Mark,  that  the  resurrected  Messiah  then  and  there  spoke 
those  harsh  words,  although  each  of  them  pretends  to  record 
literally  what  he  did  say  pnst  mortem 

This  is  a  new  doctrine.  It  was  unknown  to  -Jew  and  Gen- 
tile. It  is  the  doctrine  against  which  all  men  outside  of  the 
Christian  circle  loudly  and- emphatically  protest — all  who 
believe  in  the  goodness  and  justice  of  the  Supreme  Being. 
It  is  the  foundation  for  that  most  intolerant  dogma  of  sal- 
vation by  that  particular  faith  and  the  performance  of  that 
special  ceremony  of  baptizement ;  and  on  this  unreasonable 
dogma  the  conversion  mania  bases  its  claims  and  justifica- 
tion. The  whole  idiosyncrasy  is  concentrated  in  the  phrase, 
"  to  save  souls." 

We  must  discuss  this  point  next,  and  will  here  onh-  state 
that  Judaism  from  Father  Abraham  and  Moses  down  to  the 
last  of  the  prophets  never  advanced  such  an  idea,  the  Tal- 
mud and  its  expounders  condemn  it,  and  rationalistic  Juda- 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  37 

ism  to  this  very  day  looks  upon  it  as  being  the  most  narrow- 
minded  dogma  of  all  religious  creeds  known  in  history,  and 
the  source  of  unspeakable  misery  to  millions  besides  the 
sufferers  from  the  Crusades,  Inquisition  and  autos  da  fe. 


CHAPTER  V. 

UNIVERSAL  SALVATION  WITHOUT  THE  MESSIAH, 

IT  was  an  angel  of  salvation  that  said  to  Lot,  fleeing  from 
doomed  Sodom  :  Al  thabbit  acharecha,  "  Look  not  behind 
thee ;  "  look  forward,  proceed,  go  onward,  and  never  back- 
ward. That  hapless  woman  who  did  look  backward  was 
turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt ;  she  was  petrified.  That  is  the 
penalty  for  retrogression.  In  all  spiritual  aftairs  petrifica- 
tion is  the  penalty  for  retrogression.  Running  down  from 
the  sunny  summit  of  rationality  into  the  dusky  valley  of 
obscure  mysticism  is  certainly  spiritual  retrogression.  Juda- 
ism has  in  its  rear  the  labor  of  three  thousand  years  of  edu- 
cation and  progression  from  the  dim  twilight  of  semi-con- 
scious faith  to  the  postulate  of  reason,  and  now,  at  this  high 
noon  hour,  comes  the  kabbalistic  conversionist  and  seeks 
to  entice  us  down  into  the  misty  and  chilly  dale  of  an  unrea- 
soning faith  in  Christology,  which  wages  a  hopeless  conflict 
with  the  dicta  of  reason.  Fools  or  knaves,  agnostics  or  sen- 
sualists, with  Avhom  the  loaf  of  bread  outweighs  reason  and 
conscience,  may  tumble  down  the  declivity ;  the  sound  and 
fair  Hebrew  can  not  go  back  and  be  petrified. 

The  Church  reasons  not,  it  dictates,  because  it  is  a  super- 
natural revelation,  says  the  priest.  It  tells  you  in  plain  and 
unmistakable  language  that  he  who  believes  and  is  bap- 
tized shall  be  saved,  and  he  who  believes  not  shall  be 
damned;  in  order  to  gain  the  precious  prize  of  eternal  life 
and  bliss  you  must  overrule  and  override  all  considerations 
of  reason,  all  hesitations  of  conscience,  and  believe  the  Avholo 
evangelical  story  and  the  entire  Christology  based  upon  it ; 
if  you  can  not  do  this,  or  you  could  and  do  not  do  it,  you  arc 
damned  to  everlasting  torments  or  final  destruction  of  the 
soul.  Mr.  Calvnn  goes  one  step  beyond  this  and  informs  us 
that  those  who  are  predestined  or  elected  bv  the  Father  of 
(38) 


vs.  PROSELYTIZINC  CHRISTIAXITV.  39 

man  will  be  saved,  all  others  are  damned.  Christian  sa- 
vants differ  widely  in  their  definitions  of  the  ideas  of 
•'  saved,"  and  "  damned,"  although  in  the  main  they  all  agree 
that  salvation  depends  on  that  particular  faith  which  Christ- 
ology  teaches;  and  we  think  the  whole  is  a  conglomeration 
of  human  speculations  basing  on  erroneous  premises. 

We  maintain  that  salvation  is  promised  to  oilmen  ivho  do 
not  wilfully  and  violently  destroy  the  divine  in  human  nature, 
and  has  been  specially  and  unconditionally  promised  to  all  who 
are  of  Israel. 

We  agree  that  there  is  in  us  and  above  us  the  eternal  God, 
Greater,  Preserver  and  Governor  of  all  beings,  Source  of  life, 
love  and  intellect,  Father  and  Providence  of  mankind,  whose 
attributes,  like  those  of  love,  mercy,  grace,  goodness,  wisdom 
justice  and  freedom,  are  infinite  and  absolute  as  himself, 
above  and  beyond  all  comparisons  with  similar  qualities  of 
any  finite  being.  He  is  the  All-in- All  and  the  beings  in  this 
All  are  the  products  of  his  will.  There  can  be  no  contradic- 
tions in  the  Perfect  Being,  there  can  be  no  evil  and  no  evil 
one,  nothing  aimless,  nothing  without  an  intelligent  purpose 
in  God's  creation.  There  must  be  an  eternal  fitness  of  all 
things  in  their  times  and  places,  all  things  properly  co-ordi- 
nate and  subordinate  for  the  well-being  of  the  whole,  and 
everything  perfectly  equipped  and  qualified  to  fulfill  its  des- 
tiny and  to  attain  its  full  share  of  happiness.  If  one  can 
get  the  conversion  agent  to  interrupt  his  memorized  speech 
long  enough  till  he  has  heard  this  confession  of  faith,  he 
will,  if  he  is  candid,  affirm  that  he  also  believes  in  it,  and 
that  all  this  is  well  said  in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures, 
nothing  can  be  added  to  it,  nothing  taken  away  from  it 
without  offending  the  authority  of  revelation  and  the  maj- 
esty of  reason. 

In  this  harmonious  All,  however,  man  appears  to  be  an 
alien,  an  interloper,  a  disturbing  element,  a  tormenting  and 
tormented  wretch,  overburdened  with  care  and  labor  to  pro- 
vide for  himself  sustenance  and  shelter,  of  which  even  the 
fish  in  the  water  is  free.  In  his  childhood  the  weakest  and 
most  helpless  of  all  creatures,  in  old  age  a  child  again,  in  the 
prime  of  life  exposed  to  numerous  diseases,  pain,  grief,  mor- 


40  A    DEFENSE    OK   JIDAISM 

tification,  gnawing  disappointments,  gifted  or  cursed  with 
the  consciousness  of  threatening  danger  and  approaching 
death,  under  the  pauseless  combat  of  passion  and  conscience, 
man  ekes  out  the  few  brief  j'ears  on  earth,  all  of  which  is 
unknown  to  the  animal,  whose  every  day  is  unconscious  and 
careless  happiness.  On  the  top  of  all  this  misery  there 
comes  the  Darwinist  and  tells  you  that  you  are  the  son  of 
an  ape,  taking  out  of  the  poor  creature  the  little  pride  of  an- 
cestry which  afforded  him  some  consolation  in  his  miser\-.* 
Then  comes  the  priest  and  informs  you  that  all  men  are 
sinners,  all  bear  the  burden  of  an  original  sin  besides,  and 
groan  helplessly  under  the  curse  of  universal  depravity,  so 
that  the  poor  man  is  not  merely  the  son  of  an  ape,  but  the 
damned  son  of  a  chimpanzee.  Man  may  justly  ask  Provi- 
dence :  Wh}'^  is  it  thus?  Why  am  I  gifted  with  nobler  feelings, 
these  loftier  sentiments,  this  restless  and  sleeples  conscience, 
this  indomitable  consciousness,  this  superior  intellect,  these 
hopes  and  fears,  this  insatiable  longing,  yearning  and  dis- 
satisfaction, which  reduce  my  share  of  happiness  in  this 
■beautiful  world  below  that  of  the  irrational  beast?  Where 
is  God's  justice,  love  and  Avisdom  manifested  in  human  na- 
ture and  fate? 

At  this  point  of  the  cogitation  reason's  voice  chimes  into 
the  melancholy  and  confused  accents  of  plaintive  man  and 
swells  the  discords  into  harmony  and  soothing  melody.  It 
is  a  revelation,  a  divine  revelation,  a  revelation  of  the  di- 
vine, only  in  another  form,  it  reached  man  by  the  mediation 
of  reason,  therefore  it  came  alike  to  all  men.  It  is  the  great 
truth,  that  man  is  an  immortal  being  His  sojourn  on  this 
earth  is  the  first  stage  of  his  existence.  His  life  on  this 
planet  is  a  continuous  state  of  development  and  preparation 
for  another  and  higher  state  of  existence,  if  he  does  not  vio- 
lently obstruct  this  course  of  the  divine  in  his  nature.  His 
order  on  happiness  which  he  brings  along  from  on  high  is 

*  It  took  a  Christian  savan,  one  that  grew  up  under  the  pessimis- 
tic and  degrading  estimate  of  human  nature,  to  liit  upon  the  idea 
of  man's  descendency  from  a  brute,  in  none  else  could  the  ideal  of 
manhood  become  so  debased. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZI.\(i    CHRISTIAXITV.  41 

not  fully  lionored  in  thi.x  state  of  existence;  it  must  be  re- 
deemed in  another  state  of  existence,  when  he  is  sufficiently 
developed  and  prepared  to  receive,  enjoy  and  appreciate  it. 
The  chicaneries,  the  teasing  afflictions,  the  pains,  griefs  and 
woes  to  which  man  is  exposed  in  this  life  are  so  many  ad- 
monitions and  impulses  to  him  to  continue  his  course  of 
development  and  preparation  for  a  higher  and  purer  life ;  'to 
be  reminded  that  mundane  life  is  not  the  only  nor  the  high- 
est object  of  man"s  existence.  Pain,  grief,  sorrow,  woe,  dis- 
appointment and  mortification,  the  dark  clouds  on  life  s  ho- 
rizon, are  providential  means  of  education  for  a  better  and 
higher  existence,  and  that  existence  is  man's  real  aim  and 
ultimate  purpose.  So  reason  solved  the  mystery  of  human 
existence  and  human  woes. 

If  this  is  so — and  that  it  is  so  the  beliefs  of  all  nations, 
ancient  and  modern,  seem  to  confirm — and  God  is  all  wise, 
all  just  and  most  merciful,  he  must  have  provided  ample 
means  for  every  human  being,  and  placed  them  within  his 
reach,  to  fulfill  his  destiny  on  earth  and  in  heaven,  to  attain 
the  object  of  his  existence,  the  ultimate  aim  of  his  being. 
If  salvation  and  bliss,  in  that  higher  state  of  existence,  be 
the  end  and  aim  of  the  human  being,  then  the  means  to  at- 
tain it,  like  the  knowledge  there 'f,  must  be  innate  in  man 
and  with  equal  liberality  equally  bestowed  on  all  children 
of  man.  We  must  believe  this  or  deny  the  justice  and  good- 
ness of  our  Maker,  and  yield  to  pessimism  and  despair. 

If  the  Church  maintains  that  salvation  depends  on  its 
particular  belief  and  practice,  of  which  nine-tenths  of  all 
human  beings  from  Adam  to  our  da\'S  never  heard,  never 
knew  of  its  existence,  it  blasphemes  the  Creator  of  man  by 
the  flat  denial  of  his  justice  and  goodness.  If  those  nine- 
tenths  of  humanity  are  damned  in  the  estimation  of  the 
Church,  then  it  must  admit  that  its  God  is  not  only  the 
most  merciless  tyrant  and  most  furious  despot  but  also  the 
most  unwise  and  unskilled  workmaster,  having  made  so 
nlany  millions  of  human  beings  in  vain,  as  they  did  not  ful- 
fill their  destiny,  did  not  attain  the  end  and  aim  for  which 
they  were  originally  intended.  If  that  be  so,  then  the  God 
of  the  Church  owes  a  heavv  debt  to  those  uncounted  millions 


42  A  DfZKKXSK  OK  .JIDAISM 

of  men  wliose  order  on  liappiness  was  not  redeemed,  whose 
sufferings  and  afflictions  in  mundane  life  were  not  recom- 
pensed. What  kind  of  a  God  is  he  who  is  not  even  as  good 
as  that  zealous  conversionist  who  would  go  thousands  of 
miles  to  save  one  soul ;  not  as  merciful  as  any  ordinary 
mortal,  who  is  willing  and  ready  to  save  any  human  being 
from  perdition,  and  alleviate  the  sufTerings  of  even  the  most 
abject  criminal ;  not  as  wise  and  provident  as  any  common 
machinist,  any  ordinary  watchmaker,  who  would  not  con- 
struct any  wheel  or  any  other  part  of  a  machine  which  would 
fail  to  fulfill  its  destiny?  Before  the  judgment  seat  of  com- 
mon sense  such  a  God  is  an  idol  of  human  fabrication. 

Hold  on,  says  the  conversion  agent,  the  Evangelist,  or 
rather  Paul,  did  not  mean  that,  although  the  stern  dogmatic 
understands  it  so.  For  Mark  says  first ;  "  Go  ye  into  all  the 
world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature  ;  "  hence  the 
sense  of  the  next  passage  must  be,  that  only  those  wiio  shall 
hear  the  Gospel  and  know  it,  and  believe  not,  shall  be 
damned.  Yes,  yes,  it  might  be  understood  so,  but  it  never 
was,  especially  not  by  him  who  wrote  the  Gospel  according 
to  Nicodemus,  Avith  the  story  of  Christ's  descending  to  hell, 
which  has  become  a  part  of  Christian  belief.  Paul  did  not 
think  so,  when  he  excused  the  unbelief  of  the  Jews,  and 
maintained  that  they  could  be  saved  by  the  Law.  Still  if  we 
do  admit  this,  it  does  not  improve  the  cause  of  Christology. 
For,  in  the  first  place  it  admits  that  many  millions  of 
human  beings  were  saved  and  are  saved  now — not  knowing 
the  Christian  story — without  the  interference  of  the  crucified 
Messiah,  hence  the  power  of  salvation  must  be  in  human 
nature  or  in  God,  however  imperfect  the  conception  of 
Deity  was  in  those  millions  of  men.  If  so,  there  was  not 
only  no  necessity  of  enacting  that  whole  Gospel  drama,  or 
rather  tragedy,  as  men  were  saved  without  it,  but  it  made 
the  case  so  much  worse,  as  formerly  all  men  could  be  saved, 
and  now  those  who  know  the  story  and  do  not  believe  it 
are  damned.  So  much  advantage  millions  of  men  have  lost 
by  a  special  decree  of  the  Deity,  as  they  maintain. 

Where  is  the  justice,  goodness,  mercy  and  wisdom  of  that 
supposed  God  who  issued  that  despotic  mandate?     If  one 


vs.  PROSELYTUI.NC  fHRISTIAXITY.  43 

can  justify  this  merciless  absolutism  in  connection  with 
the  All-good  and  All-wise,  he  must  also  admit  that  at  that 
time  when  the  Gospel-drama  was  enacted  God  changed  hu- 
man nature  in  such  a  peculiar  manner  that  those  who  know 
nothing  of  the  story  remain  in  statu  quo,  and  those  who 
hoar  and  do  not  believe  it  lose  their  inherent  power  of  sal- 
vation. There  is  no  fact  known  in  nature  or  history  and  no 
law  in  logic  to  prove  such  an  anomaly  in  God's  govern- 
ment. 

It  might  be  maintained  that  we  who  worship  God  as  the 
supreme  goodness,  justice,  wisdom  and  love  are  mistaken, 
although  Moses  and  the  Prophets  taught  so.  The  Supreme 
Being,  taught  from  the  standpoint  of  Christology,  would 
appear  to  us  so  merciless  and  revengeful  that  he  could  not 
forgive  the  sins  of  his  children,  as  any  good,  human  father 
would  cheerfully  do,  and  would  grant  them  no  pardon  till 
he  had  sacrificed  his  only  begotten  son,  which  no  good  hu- 
man father  and  no  other  just  man  would  do.  We  condemn 
those  heathen  kings  and  princes  of  old  who  in  time  of  great 
distress  sacrificed  their  own  sons  to  move  the  compassion 
of  the  gods,  as  did  Mesha,  the  King  of  Moab,  some  Phoe- 
nician kings  and  other  heathens.  We  know  that  God  said 
to  Abraham  not  to  slay  Isaac,  who  was  ready  to  be  sacri- 
ficed, and  to  Moses  :  "  Him  who  sinned  to  me  will  I  blot 
out  from  my  book,"  hence  God  wants  no  human  victims,  no 
vicarious  atonement,  no  innocent  man  to  die  for  the  sins  of 
others.  ^ 

To  us,  indeed,  such  a  God  appears  the  most  relentless,  im- 
placable and  cruel  Moloch  which  the  most  bewildered  phan- 
tasy of  a  barbarous  age  could  invent.  Still  the  Supreme 
Being,  taught  from  the  standpoint  of  Christolog}',  is  entirely 
different  from  our  ideal  and  knowledge  of  Deity.  What  we 
call  mercy,  love,  grace,  long-suffering,  justice  and  wisdom, 
is  not  that  at  all  in  the  Supreme  Being  as  understood  by  the 
believers  in  Christology.  Hence  we  unbelievers  do  not  know 
at  all  what  love,  justice,  wisdom,  etc.,  in  the  Supreme  Being 
is,  and  so  we  can  not  see  why  this  one  should  be  saved  and 
that  other  one  damned ;  we  can  not  see  why  and  wherefore 
the  salvation  of  mankind  should  depend  upon  a  book,  a 


44  A   DEFENSE    OF   JFDAISM 

particular  belief  or  performance.  AVe  let  them  have  this  ar- 
gument, if  it  does  them  any  good,  as  long  as  they  do  not  at- 
tempt to  force  it  on  us.  Subjective  truth  is  a  factor  in  man's 
mind,  which  produces  the  same  wonderful  effects  as  does 
the  excited  phantasy.  It  is  difhcult  to  sit  in  judgment  over 
it.  We  only  say,  because  no  human  reason  can  think  it  and 
po  man's  unprejudiced  conscience  can  indorse  it,  we  reject  it. 
But  when  one  indirectly  or  directly  maintains  that  the  God 
of  the  Old  Testament  is  either  an  impostor  and  said  things 
which  are  not  true,  or  an  ignorant  power,  who  said  and 
promised  then  and  there  and  repealed  or  countermanded  it 
afterward,  then  he  knows  better,  we  are  sure  that  the  man, 
church,  angel  or  devil  who  maintains  this  utters  a  blasphe- 
mous falsehood.  So  does  he,  however,  who  maintains  that 
after  the  crucifixion  and  ascension  God  decreed  that  he  Avho 
knows  and  believes  the  Christian  story  and  is  baptized  shall 
be  saved,  the  rest  shall  be  damned ;  when  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Scriptures  it  is  repeatedly  and  emphatically  stated 
that  Israel  is  saved  an  everlasting  salvation,  and  we  are  of 
Israel,  know  and  do  not  believe  that  story ;  when  it  is 
repeatedly  and  emphatically  stated  there  that  God  alone 
and  himself  is  the  redeemer  and  savior  of  Israel ;  when 
God  said,  "  This  is  my  covenant  with  them,  ray  spirit  which 
is  upon  thee,  and  my  word  which  I  have  put  into  thy 
mouth  shall  not  depart  from  thy  mouth,  and  from  the 
mouth  of  thy  seed,  and  from  the  mouth  of  thy  seed's  seed, 
saith  Jehovah,  even  from  now  to  eternity,"  and  a  hundred 
similar  passages,  upon  which  ancient  expounders  based 
their  dogmas.  "Every  Israelite  has  part  in  the  future 
world,"  and  "  The  good  men  among  the  Gentiles  have  part 
in  the  future  world."  When  did  God  utter  a  falsehood? 
Certainly  not  when  he  spoke  to  Israel.  When  and  where 
did  God  repeal  or  revoke  his  promises  and  assurances? 
Certainly  not  on  Mount  Calvary  or  in  any  ecumenical  coun- 
cil. When  and  where  did  God  violently  change  human  na- 
ture to  push  millions  into  the  oblivion  of  damnation?  Cer- 
tainly not  at  any  time  within  man's  memory.  Hence,  that 
salvation  argument  of  the  conversionist  is  a  poor  dodge  to 
hide  the  weak  point  of  Christology,  that  it  has  nothing  to 


vs.    PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY,  45 

offer  to  the  Hebrew  except  a  little  worldly  advantage  in  a 
society  benighted  with  childish  prejudices,  steeped  in  myths 
and  selfislniess.  No  retrogression,  no  petrification,  no 
Christology  for  us.  With  all  men  of  reason,  we  believe  in 
universal  salvation  and  need  none  of  your  crutches,  because 
we  believe,  as  did  our  ancestors,  in  the  true  God  whose 
grace  endures  forever,  and  whose  mercy  is  as  infinite  as  his 
power  and  wisdom, 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MUNDANE  HAPPINESS   DEPENDS   ON   MORALITY,  NOT   ON   CHRI8T- 

OLOGY. 

UTTOXOR  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days  be 
-Q-  prolonged  upon  the  soil  which  God  thy  Lord  giveth 
thee."  This  is  one  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  which  are 
fundamental  laws  to  all  nations  professing  in  any  form  the  re- 
ligion of  monotheism.  In  that  same  good  book  the  promise 
is  often  repeated,  "that  it  may  be  well  with  thee  and  thy 
days  be  prolonged,"  that  thou  mayest  live  long  and  live  well, 
content  and  happy  It  must  be  evident,  therefore,  at  least 
to  all  who  believe  in  the  divine  revelations  of  the  good  book, 
that  the  natural  yearning  of  man  to  live  long  and  happy  is 
no  less  a  law  of  God  than  the  dicta  of  conscience  and  rea- 
son. If  so,  all  Nazirite  practices,  all  ascetic  self-inflictions, 
unless  in  individual  cases  thej^  are  intended  to  bridle  over- 
grown animal  passions,  all  voluntary  misery,  every  curtail- 
ing oi  happiness  to  any  human  being,  be  it  self  or  others,  is 
sinful,  because  it  is  a  transgression  of  the  law  of  God.  The 
question  in  divine  jurisprudence  can  only  be,  when  and  to 
what  extent  am  I  permitted  to  sacrifice  my  own  happiness 
to  that  of  others?  The  framers  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  in  fact  the  authors  of  any  constitution  for  just 
government  paid  close  attention  to  this  important  ques- 
tion 

We  will  say  nothing  here  about  the  direct  contrary  princi- 
ple underlying  Christology  which  goes  so  far  as  to  maintain 
that  even  God  himself  inflicted  the  utmost  passion,  pain 
and  sufiering  upon  his  own  person,  suggesting  to  all  believ- 
ers *  Go  and  do  likewise.'  We  only  call  attention  to  the  ir- 
refutable inductions  that  those  who  believe  in  the  revela- 
tions on  Mt  Sinai  and  all  who  believe  that  the  laws  revealed 
in  human  nature  are  no  less  divine,  must  admit  that  mun- 
C4t)) 


A    DEFENSE    OF    JUDAISM.  47 

dane  happiness  is  at  least  one  main  object  of  religion. 
Therefore  it  might  justly  be  maintained,  if  Christology  of- 
fers no  special  advantage  to  any  one  in  aquiring  that  unde- 
fined bliss  in  the  future  state  of  existence,  it  might  offer 
mundane  advantages  which  recommend  it  to  our  special 
consideration.  True,  the  proselytizing  Christian — I  mean 
him  who  is  honest — does  not  hold  out  any  worldly  induce- 
ments to  the  lost  soul,  he  only  speaks  of  salvation  and  bliss 
hereafter.  He  does  that  in  accordance  with  his  faith,  the 
founder  of  which  said,  'My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world." 
But  you  who  do  believe  that  mundane  happiness  according 
to  the  will  of  God  is  of  some  importance,  it  is  at  least  one  of 
man's  ultimate  objects  of  existence,  you  might  take  into 
consideration  the  point  upon  which  the  conversionist  can 
not  well  dwell,  as  quite  a  number  of  renegades  from  our 
camp  have  iictually  done,  and  all  those  disreputable  indi- 
viduals do,  who  sell  their  birthright  for  a  mess  of  lentils, 
prostitute  their  conscience  for  a  loaf  of  bread,  to  speak  with 
King  Solomon.  It  is  proper,  therefore,  to  investigate  this 
point. 

It  must  be  said  right  here  that  any  momentary  advan- 
tage, the  purchase  of  any  brief  happiness  is  not  what  I  mean, 
or  else  the  thief  or  the  robber  to  whom  the  booty  affords  a 
momentary  advantage  and  a  sort  of  happiness,  or  the  re- 
vengeful man  who  slays  his  foe  that  is  in  his  way,  to  gain  a 
momentary  advantage  and  satisfaction,  would  be  justifiable 
on  the  same  principle.  What  I  mean  to  discuss  is,  does 
Christology  offer  any  lasting  and  universal  advantage  to  hu 
manity  to  gain  mundane  happiness?  With  every  good 
Christian  I  answer  this  question  in  the  negative  :  It  offers 
no  such  advantage. 

Not  Christology  hxU  sound  morality  is  the  first  main  factor  to 
produce  mundane  happiness  to  the  individual  and  society. 

The  6rst  condition  of  lasting  and  universal  happiness — 
we  all  agree  —  is  sound  morality.  Any  country,  society  or 
individual  can  enjoy  only  so  much  happiness  as  is  counter 
poised  by  so  much  sound  and  just  mcrality  in  principle  and 
action.  The  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  few  and  short-lived. 
Any  one  whose  standard  of  happiness  is  correct  and  not 


48  A   DEFEXt^E   OF   JCDAISM 

imaginary,  judges  individuals  and  communities  from  their 
own  standpoints,  and  not  his  particular  one,  and  considers 
a  person's  whole  career  in  life  or  a  nation's  long  j)eriod  of 
history,  can  easily  convince  himself  that  mundane  happi- 
ness is  commensurate  to  the  quantity  and  quality  of  moral- 

ity. 

It  is  with  mundane  happiness  as  with  eternal  bliss.  If 
the  Maker  of  man  is  the  benign,  merciful  and  gracious 
father  of  all  his  children,  he  must  have  destined  them  for 
happiness.  Love  is  the  desire  to  shower  liappiness  upon  its 
object.  If  so  he  must  have  endowed  ever}*  human  being 
with  adequate  capacities  and  placed  the  means  within  his 
reach  to  acquire  his  share  of  happiness.  This  or  that  par- 
ticular religion  is  not  within  everybodys  reach,  sound  mo- 
rality is  ;  everybody  can  be  moral  to  the  best  of  his  knowl- 
edge, and  this  quantity  suffices  to  procure  mundane  happi- 
ness. Therefore  individuals  and  communities  under  the 
influence  of  the  most  opposite  and  not  seldom  most  perni- 
cious doctrines  of  faith  acquired  an  adequate  share  of 
happiness. 

In  this  particular  point,  however,  Christology  can  do 
nothing  for  us  theoretically  or  practically.  The  forte  of 
Christianity  is  its  moral  doctrine.  All  the  good  it  ever  did 
and  ever  can  do  is  accomplished  by  the  spread  of  this 
moral  doctrine  among  such  nations  or  tribes  with  whom,  on 
account  of  their  defective  intelligence  the  s  andard  of 
morals  was  low  and  inadequate  to  attain  that  amount  of 
happiness  which  man  is  naturally  endowed  to  enjoy.  Press- 
ing the  honest  and  considerate  Christian  to  the  sequences 
of  his  logic,  he  will  confess  that  Christology  has  nothing 
to  do  with  morality,  per  se,  whose  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world.  He  will  only  claim  that  Chri.stology  is  the  vessel 
in  which  this  morality  was  shipped  from  Judea,  to  Damas- 
cus, Alexandria  and  Rome,  and  distributed  fr  m  those 
points  far  east,  west,  south  and  north,  and  as  such  a  vessel 
it  was  quite  a  success.  Besides  this,  he  will  claim  that  the 
will  of  man  must  have  an  incentive  to  encourage  and 
strengthen  him  in  the  practical  realization  of  that  which 
he  has  learned  to  be  good,  right  and  proper,  and  Christ- 


vs.    PROSELYTIZING   CHRISTIANITY.  49 

ology  has  proved  such  an  incentive,  which  we  can  not  un- 
conditionally admit,  and  will  discuss  it  later  on ;  here, 
however,  for  argument  sake  we  admit  it  all. 

If  I  borrow  every  day  twenty  five  dollars  from  you  and 
pay  yru  back  twenty  dollars  a  day  you  would  not  get 
richer  by  this  operation.  All  the  moral  doctrine  in  pos- 
session of  Christianity  is  borrowed  bodily  from  Judaism. 
How  could  it  come  now  to  us  to  teach  morals?  It  could 
not  give  us  back  all  it  borrowed,  because  it  lost  largely 
from  its  original  capital,  hence  we  could  expect  only 
twenty  dollars  for  the  twenty  five  dollars  loaned.  We  are 
too  far  advanced  to  do  any  such  business  This  is  not 
said  in  fun,  it  is  a  solid  fact.  With  Moses  the  revelations 
of  Deity  closed  ;  so  much  and  no  more  the  human  mind  is 
enabled  to  know  of  the  Supreme  Being,  that  he  is  and 
what  he  is,  that  he  rules  and  how  he  rules.  Reason  has  no 
means  to  rise  beyond  the  infinite,  absolute,  eternal  One 
who  is  the  source  and  cause  of  all  being.  No  phantasy,  no 
intellect  and  no  acquired  wisdom  can  soar  higher,  there  is 
the  limit  of  human  ability ;  and  so  did  Moses  see  and 
teach  his  Jehovah,  nothing  can  be  added  to  it.  All  theos- 
ophists,  theologians  and  philosophers  after  Moses  could 
not  and  did  not  add  one  iota  to  our  knowledge  of  God 
where  Mo?es  leaves  us.  That  God  is  merciful,  beneficent, 
long-sufiering,  but  just,  the  highest  ideal  of  grace  and  truth 
which  man  could  possibly  conceive,  that  he  is  our  Father 
and  we  are  his  children,  of  him  and  in  him,  Moses  has  ex- 
plained most  expressively  and  most  impressively;  that  it 
is  man's  duty  to  love  God  with  all  his  heart,  with  all  his 
soul  and  with  all  his  might,  to  love  our  neighbor,  to  love 
the  stranger,  to  embrace  lovingly  God  and  his  creation,  by 
which  we  remain  in  continual  connection  with  God  and 
nature,  was  revealed  fully  and  abundantly  to  Israel,  di- 
rectly and  indirectly,  by  Moses.  Nothing  was,  nothing 
could  possibly  be  added  thereto;  the  mind  of  man  and  the 
reason  of  mankind  can  not  rise  higher  in  conceiving  the 
Absolute  Deity,  the  divine  in  man  or  the  interconnection 
of  the  universal  with  the  individualized  spirit. 

We    furthermore   know   with   moral   certitude   that  all 


50  A    DEFENSK    OF    JUDAISM 

teachings,  doctrines,  precepts,  law,  commandments,  or  in 
any  other  form  concerning  form  of  worship,  faith  in  im- 
mortality and  providence,  forgiveness  of  sin,  all  ethical 
principles,  all  moral  doctrines  and  commandments,  if  true, 
humane  and  beneficial,  are  no  more  and  no  less  than 
the  necessary  sequences  of  our  conceptions  of  Deity,  from 
which  they  flow  with  inevitable  necessity  as  categoric 
imperatives,  imperative  categories  as  laid  down  in  the  Dec- 
alogue and  elsewhere.  As  is  a  man's  or  nation's  or  an\'' 
system's  conception  of  Deity,  so  true  or  false,  so  high  or 
low,  is  their  moral  conception,  their  ethical  principle  or 
principles.  In  Moses  we  have  the  loftiest  and  purest  con- 
ception of  Deity,  hence  also  the  loftiest  and  purest  moral 
conception,  the  most  eminent  ethical  principle  and  princi- 
ples, to  which  nothing  can  possibly  be  added,  although 
much  could  be  and  has  been  taken  away. 

Christianity  started  out  originally,  earnestly,  zealously  and 
energetically  with  the  Mosaic  God-conception,  somewhat 
dimmed  by  the  then  prevailing  mysticism,  Gnosticism  and 
Alexandrian  electicism ;  and  took  along  from  home  as  much 
of  the  moral  principle  as  was  compatible  with  that  dimmed 
conception  of  Deity.  It  was  meek,  gentle,  affectionate,  tol- 
erant and  unselfish.  The  further  away  from  its  birthplace 
it  went,  the  more  conquests  it  made  among  the  Gentiles,  the 
more  it  accommodated  itself  and  its  God-conception  to 
pagan  notions,  sentiments,  habits,  forms  and  heritages.  As 
its  God-conception  was  toned  down,  so  its  moral  principle 
was  enfeebled.  When  it  came  to  power  it  was  arrogant, 
combative,  intolerant,  its  meekness  and  gentility  were 
turned  into  a  haughty  spirit  of  persecution,  its  unselfish- 
ness was  drowned  in  despotic  imperialism  and  an  imperi- 
ous hierarchy,  its  humane  affections  were  submerged  in 
the  barbarous  rudeness  of  half-civilized  masses,  from  all  of 
which  it  never  did  fully  recover.  When  it  first  broke  forth 
in  its  complete  heathen  garb  in  the  Crusades,  it  bore  no 
more  resemblance  to  its  original  state  than  a  block  house 
does  to  a  gorgeous  palace,  as  every  knowing  Christian  of 
to-day  will  readily  confirm.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  as 
the  God-conception  was  obscured  under  the  mist  of  pagan 


vs.    PROSELYTIZING   CHRISTIANITY.  51 

notions,  in  the  same  ratio  the  moral  principle  was  de- 
graded, as  even  Paul  of  Tarsus  said,  truth  became  a  mock- 
ery and  God's  law  a  dead  letter,  buried  under  the  rubbish 
of  fantastic  speculations,  pervert  and  froward  practices. 
Christianity  did  not  recover  yet  from  the  dogmatism  of 
the  Medieval  church,  and  just  so  is  its  moral  principle 
sickly  yet,  as  morbid  as  its  God-conception ;  it  can  teach 
us  no  morals  theoretically.  Judaism  also,  you  say,  retro- 
graded. Indeed  it  did,  lamentably  so.  It  learned  too 
much  of  its  neighbors.  But  it  never  degraded  its  God- 
conception,  and  so  its  moral  principle  remained  intact, 
sound,  firm  and  unalloyed.  The  literature  of  both  Chris- 
tians and  Jews,  from  the  dark  ages  of  mysticism  and  igno- 
rance, afford  proof  positive  in  this  matter.. 

That  is  all  theory  and  speculation,  one  might  say.  Take 
into  consideration  the  practical  results  and  you  will  find 
that  after  all  Christianity  has  built  up  this  civilized  world 
on  three  continents  with  all  its  grand  institutions  of  justice, 
virtue  and  righteousness — not,  however,  without  the  aid  of 
Hebrew  and  Moor.  Is  this  no  mundane  advantage?  Must 
it  not  appear  so  clearly,  especially  to  the  Hebrew,  who  has 
neither  king  nor  country?  Thank  you  for  this  little  re- 
minder which  we  hear  so  often  and  indelicately,  although 
there  is  not  overmuch  truth  in  it.  Christology — no  more 
than  Greco-Roman  heathenism — built  up  no  civilization  as 
an  improvement  on  the  former.  The  Christian  empires  of 
to-day  are  in  proportion  no  more  powerful  and  no  better 
organized  than  the  Roman  Empire  was  in  its  day.  Slavery, 
serfdom,  despotism  and  corruption  in  all  strata  of  society, 
are  to-day  not  wiped  out  in  Christendom,  the  feudal  laws, 
originating  in  robbery,  are  extant,  and  fanaticism  is  ram- 
pant yet. 

If  the  Messiah  produced  this  civilization,  then  you  must 
give  credit  to  Jupiter,  Zeus  and  Chronos,  who  did  the  same 
thing  in  a  much  shorter  time,  as  it  took  Christendom  fif- 
teen to  sixteen  centuries  to  produce  anything  like  a  decent 
civilization,  although  they  were  the  heirs  of  Rome,  Athens 
and  Jerusalem.  Did  the  Greco-Roman  heathens  whip  more 
slaves  than  did  the  Christian  knights?  Did  they  shed  more 


52  A   DEFENSE   OF   JUDAISM 

blood  in  war  than  the  Christian  potentates?  Did  the  Roman 
lords  oppress  and  rob  their  subjects  more  than  did  the 
Christian  barons,  princes  and  kings  by  the  grace  of  God? 
Did  those  heathens  steal,  rob,  murder,  lie,  swindle  defraud, 
bribe  and  misrepresent  facts  more  than  did  the  Chrisiians? 
The  Romans  threw  the  captives  of  war  before  ferocious 
beasts  and  were  delighted  with  the  sport,  and  Christians  tor- 
tured and  roasted  alive  witches,  heretics,  Jews,  Mohamme- 
dans and  American  Indians,  and  sang  to  it  the  praise  of  the 
Lord.  That  Christian  civilization  which  is  superior  to  the 
Roman  is  not  two  hundred  years  old  yet,  in  the  main  it 
dates  from  the  American  and  the  French  revolutions,  and 
is  limited  yet  to  one-half  of  Christendom,  the  other  half 
stands  to-day  below  the  Greco-Roman  civilization.  This 
superior  civilization  was  not  produced  by  Christology  or  by 
the  Church  at  all;  it  was  produced  by  the  progress  of  the 
moral  principle  in  the  consciousnessof  humanity,  the  prog- 
ress of  commerce  and  industr}^  the  discoveries  of  Schwarz, 
Copernicus,  Galileo,  Kepler,  Guttenberg  and  Columbus,  all 
of  whom  the  Church  opposed.  Cromwell  and  the  Puritans 
were  the  only  religious  factors  who  assisted  in  producing 
this  civilization,  and  they  were  heretics,  who  did  cling  most 
tenaciously  to  the  Old  Testament,  with  hardly  a  trace  of  or- 
thodox dogma  about  them. 

Practically  the  Hebrew's  morality  is  certainly  not  below 
that  of  the  Christian.  He  is  as  merciful,  benevolent,  libe- 
ral generous,  peace-loving  and  law-abiding  as  any  good 
Christian.  His  family  relations  are  a-t  pure,  his  daughters 
as  chaste  and  his  business  relations  as  proper  as  one  has  a 
right  to  expect  from  the  best  Christian.  And  he  is  and 
does  all  that  without  the  devil  with  the  hish  swinging  whip- 
ping him  into  virtue  and  righteousness,  without  the  priest's 
hell  and  surveillance,  and  the  Holy  Ghost's  impetus  or  in- 
centive to  strengthen  his  will  to  overcome  his  lethargy,  to 
make  him  feel  decently.  The  Hebrew  has  no  king  of  his 
own,  so  Greece  has  not,  nor  Italy,  nor  Spain,  nor  Sweden, 
nor  even  Prussia;  most  all  potentates  are  foreigners  in 
their  own  countries.  The  Hebrews  thank  God  that  they 
have  no  king.  They  have  as  much  country  as  anybody  else 


vs.   PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  63 

has,  except  the  barons  of  England  and  Russia,  they  own  it 
all,  and  the  poor  man  is  a  tolerated  tenant,  as  a  precious 
heritage  of  the  Christian  civilization.  No  nation  has  a 
country  any  longer,  every  country  is  inhabited  by  different 
nationalities  and  mongrel  races.  Jerusalem  is  in  the  hands 
of  strangers,  so  is  Constantinople,  Cairo  and  Bombay,  Alex- 
andria and  New  York  City.  None  of  the  ancient  nations 
now  exists  intact,  and  none  of  the  modern  nations  is  a  na- 
tion in  fact.  Who  is  usually  the  best  man  of  the  two,  the 
persecutor  or  the  persecuted,  the  fanatic  or  his  victim? 
Ask  history  and  it  will  reply  in  favor  of  the  Hebrew. 
Neither  practically  nor  theoretically,  as  far  as  this  mun- 
dane life  and  happiness  are  concerned,  could  the  Hebrew 
possibly  learn  anything  of  or  gain  any  actual  advantage  by 
Christology,  therefore  do  not  molest  him,  he  would  not 
do  it. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MUNDANE   HAPPINESS   DEPENDS    ON    INTELLIGENCE,    NOT    ON 
CHRISTOLOGY. 

^<OAY  unto  wisdom,  Thou  art  my  sister;  and  call  under- 
^  standing  a  chosen  friend :  to  deliver  thee  from  the 
strange  woman,  the  stranger  with  her  beguiling  speech." 
(Proverbs  vii.  4,  5.)     This  says  that  wisdom   and  under- 
standing afford  protection  against  the  allurements  of  vice 
and  sin,  the  beguiling  counsel  of  the  irrational  instincts.  If 
unbridled  these  instincts  sacrifice  life's  real  happiness  to 
a  brief,  momentary  gratification;  if  under  proper  control 
they  contribute  continually  to  man's  mundane  happiness. 
If  this  be  so — and  so  the  wise  King  Solomon  says  in  all 
variations  in  the  first  nine  chapters  of  his  Proverbs — then 
we  know  that  the  impetus  to  and  the  supporter  of  the  will 
to  do  the  good  and  right  and  to  shun  the  opposite  is  intel- 
ligence, or,  as  the  Book  calls  it,  "  Wisdom  and  understand- 
ing;" not  the  Holy  Ghost,  but  the  human  spirit,  is  the 
comforter,  guide  and  protector  of  man,  the  Creator's  gift  to 
every  human  being,  as  you  might  expect  from  a  just  and 
benign  God,  who  distributes  equally  his  gift  of  happiness 
among  all  his  creatures.     Said  Job,  "  And  thou  sayest  to 
man  (all  the  children  of  Adam),  Behold  the  fear  of  Jehovah 
is  wisdom,  and  to  eschew  evil  is  understanding." 
If  this  be  so  we  may  lay  down  the  proposition  : 
The  second,  though  not  secondary,  factor  producing  mundane 
advantage,  success  and  happiness,  is  intelligence,  on  the  opera- 
tion, development,  progress  and  steady  application  of  which 
mans  happiness  depends. 

Nobody  doubts  the  correctness  of  this  proposition  in  all 

worldly  afiairs.    The  more  intelligently  and  circumspect- 

ively  any  piece  of  work  is  begun  and  accomplished,  the 

more  successful  will  it  prove.     Luck,  chance  and  brainless 

(54) 


A    DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM.  55 

labor  may  exceptionally  prove  beneficial,  but  generally  in- 
telligent work  accomplishes  its  purpose.  This  is  a  world 
of  cause  and  effect,  there  is  nothing  outside  thereof.  Wis- 
dom presages  the  effects  one  wishes  to  produce,  under- 
standing or  intelligence  proper  discovers  the  cause  or 
causes  producing  such  effects,  together  with  the  mode  and 
method  of  proper  application. 

The  intelligent  laborer,  mechanic,  agriculturist  or  artificer 
contributes  vastly  more  to  the  comfort  and  wealth  of  the 
community  than  any  four  of  his  thoughtless  crew.  The  in- 
telligent teacher  teaches  and  develops  heart  and  soul,  the 
unprepared  schoolmaster  drills  mechanically.  A  regiment 
of  intelligent  soldiers  is  worth  three  of  machine  warriors. 
The  same  is  the  case  with  industrials,  merchants,  bankers,, 
professional  men,  politicians  and  statesmen,  the  most  in- 
telligent connected  with  the  requisite  energy  and  morjality 
is  also  the  most  successful  and  approaches  nearest  to  perfec- 
tion in  his  particular  vocation,  hence  he  achieves  so  much 
more  success  and  happiness  from  his  labor,  while  he  is  of 
so  much  more  benefit  to  his  fellow-men,  contributing  so 
much  more  to  their  happiness. 

If  reasoning  from  analogy  is  legitimate,  we  might  say  in- 
telligence is  here  one  of  the  main  causes  of  mundane  hap- 
piness ;  furthermore  there  can  be  no  more  essentiality  in  the 
effect  than  in  the  cause,  happiness  in  quantity  and  in  quality 
depends  on  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  efficient  intelli- 
gence ;  therefore  this  must  hold  good  also  in  regard  to  eter- 
nal happiness  in  that  other  state  of  existence.  The  Jewish 
Aristotelian  philosophers,  indeed,  consider  this  axiomatic 
truth ;  but  we  are  not  to  discuss  here  this  point,  being 
foreign  to  our  subject,  with  which  we  proceed. 

All  morality  and  morals  depend  upon  the  intelligence,  and 
can,  in  quantity  and  quality,  only  be  corresponding  to  it. 
Men  may  be  born  blind,  deaf,  without  the  proper  organs  or 
limbs,  but  no  man  is  born  without  the  capacity  of  conscience. 
Conscience  is  characteristic  of  human  nature  and  appears 
active  in  every  human  being,  infants  and  idiots  excepted. 
Every  one  feels  and  knows  that  the  good,  the  right,  the  true 
are  good  and  ought  to  be  done,  and  that  wrong  is  wrong  and 


66  A    DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

ought  to  be  shunned.  The  most  degraded  criminal  respects 
the  righteous  man  above  the  wicked  Few  are  so  debased 
as  not  to  abhor  the  wickedness  of  others.  The  moral  senti- 
ment, the  seute  of  duty,  conscience,  is  in  every  man  who  is 
not  completely  brutalized.  A  good  God  has  given  this  com 
pass  to  every  one  of  his  children.  The  definition,  however, 
as  to  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  is  the  work  of  reason, 
and  depends  largely  on  outward  conditions.  Therefore,  the 
moral  law  varies  in  different  ages  and  countries  and  depends 
for  its  breadth  or  narrowness  on  the  state  of  the  intelligence 
of  individuals  and  nations.  Aa  narrow  and  as  uncultivated 
a3  is  the  intelligence  of  the  savage,  so  is  his  moral  code.  As 
the  intelligence  expands  and  is  more  enlightened  among 
nations  of  culture,  the  moral  vision  widens  and  its  code  is 
enlarged.  All  depends  at  last  on  the  grade  and  state  of  the 
intelligence. 

The  same  is  the  case  with  morality,  r  e.,  subjecting  the  de- 
fires,  wishes,  impulses,  instincts,  passions  and  volitions  to 
the  commandments  of  the  moral  code.  The  lower  the  in- 
telligence, the  less  authority  it  exercises  over  the  will ;  the 
higher  the  intelligence  the  more  authority  it  exercises  over 
the  will.  The  reason  of  all  this  is  quite  plain.  The  lower 
intelligence  can  not  look  ahead  very  far — the  animal  can 
not  do  it  at  all — consequently  it  does  not  calculate  the  evil 
consequence  of  evil  deeds,  directly  to  the  evil-doer  himself, 
or  indirectly  through  the  injured  society;  it  can  not  see 
how  the  evil  deed  of  the  individual  affects  society,  or  in  bib- 
lical language,  how  the  iniquity  of  parents  is  visited  on  their 
offspring,  even  to  the  third  and  fourth  generations.  This  in- 
tellectual inability  of  looking  far  ahead  leaves  the  instincts 
and  passions  without  restraint,  and  they  move  the  will  to 
prompt  actions,  gratifying  the  instincts  and  passions,  which 
may  be  good,  bad  or  indifferent.  The  higher  intelligence 
does  look  far  ahead— this  is  its  very  nature— calculates  the 
consequences  of  every  deed  or  omission,  as  experience 
teaches,  shrinks  back  at  the  dire  consequences  of  evil  deeds 
and  €8chew3  them,  or  is  prompted  by  the  gratifying  results 
of  the  good  deeds  and  seeks  the  opportunities  to  do  them. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZIXG    CHRISTIANITY.  57 

So  it  is  intelligence  again  which  leads  to  a  higher  morality 
by  the  higher  authority  it  exercises  upon  the  will.* 

The  religion  which  the  individual  or  the  community  pro- 
fesses exercises  a  marked  influence  on  its  professors.  Its 
finished  and  authoritatively  established  laws,  command- 
ments, doctrines  and  precepts  support  and  direct  the  intel- 
ligence to  define  correctly  that  which  the  conscience  in 
general  or  individual  cases  calls  good  or  bad,  as  the  indi- 
vidual intelligence  does  not  and  can  not  in  all  cases  appeal 
to  itself  and  wait  for  its  own  decisions,  just  as  it  is  with 
the  public  law  in  general.  Conscience,  for  instance,  de- 
clares that  it  is  good  to  be  grateful  to  parents,  as  they  are 
our  first  and  greatest  benefactors,  the  protecting  angels  of 
God  for  the  tender  plant  of  childhood.  But  if  parents  do 
not  care  for  their  oSspring,  neglect  or  even  abandon  them, 
reason  asks,  Does  the  son  or  daughter  owe  them  any  spe- 
cial consideration?  If  father  or  mother  be  low  and  de- 
spicable, rebellious  and  worthless,  does  the  child  owe  them 
any  particular  respect?  Reason  might  arrive  at  different 
and  contradictory  decisions  on  these  points ;  religion,  how- 
ever, fc  as  decided  the  question  and  commands:  "Honor 
thy  father  and  thy  mother,"  or  "  Every  man  shall  fear  his 
father  and  his  mother."  It  makes  no  difference  whatso- 
ever they  be  or  do,  being  thy  father  and  thy  mother  you 
owe  them  honor  and  respect  and  whatever  these  senti- 
ments suggest  and  prompt  you  to  do  for  them.  Conscience 
considers  it  bad  and  wrong  to  slay  a  human  being.  If, 
however,  a  person  is  too  old  and  decripit  to  enjoy  the  boon 
of  life,  in  painful  and  woful  agony,  without  hope  of  recov- 
ery, like  Saul  and  Jonathan  on  Mount  Gilboa,  or  the  hap- 
less child  of  wretched  parents  who  could  only  raise  it  to  a 
life  of  misery,  reason  asks.  Is  it  not  best  to  slay  them,  is  it 
not  best  for  themselves  and  society  to  slay  them***  Religion 
decides  the  question  apodictically,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill," 
and  shuts  out  all  individual  opinions  on  the  subject.  So 
your  religion  decides  the  questions  in  all  cases  where  the 
individual  intelligence,  or  even  the  intelligence  of  a  nation 
or  nations,  might  arrive  at  contradictory  or  conflicting  re- 
sults.    Nation  and  nations  considered  it  just  and  right  to 


58  A  dei'e:^se  ok  judaism 

have  and  enforce  exceptional  laws  for  different  clans  and 
classes  of  society,  more  or  less  oppressive,  and  it  is  held  so 
yet ;  but  your  religion  tells  you  once  for  all  and  forever : 
*'One  law  and  one  statute  shall  be  for  you  and  the  alien." 
Nation  and  nations  considered  it  right,  century  after  cen- 
tury, that  certain  men  are  privileged  to  enslave  and  hold 
in  bondage  their  fellow-men,  and  it  is  held  so  yet  in  various 
forms  in  different  communities,  yes,  right  here  in  this 
State  and  in  this  city.  Your  reUgion,  eo  ipso,  forbids  to  make 
a  slave  or  bondsman  of  any  fellow-citizen,  and  cuts  short 
all  definitions,  excuses  or  dodges  which  the  individual  in- 
telligence might  invent  by  the  medium  of  a  nation  or  na- 
tions. So  your  religion,  by  its  laws,  commandments,  ordi- 
nances, doctrines  and  precepts,  supports  and  directs  the  in- 
telligence to  judge  and  decide  correctly  the  suggestions  of 
conscience.  Religion  strengthens,  prompts  and  elevates 
both  the  will  and  the  intellect.  It  influences  the  will  by  its 
very  revelations  that  there  is  a  just  God  above  us,  a  holy 
God,  to  whom  every  wickedness  is  an  abomination,  and 
none  goes  unpunished.  As  cause  and  effect  are  linked 
universally,  so  are  wickedness  and  misery — an  All-wise  and 
All-seeing  God,  who  is  present  in  the  secret  recesses  of  the 
heart  and  witnesses  every  deed,  every  thought,  sentiment, 
wish  and  hope  of  the  human  being,  how  could  one  sin 
in  the  presence  of  his  Maker?  It  rouses,  prompts  and 
strengthens  the  intelligence  by  directing  it  to  this  cosmos 
as  God's  creation,  wherein  the  will,  power  and  wisdom  of 
the  eternal  God  are  realized,  actualized,  indellibly  im- 
printed, although  readable  to  human  intelligence  only.  It 
rouses  and  raises  the  intelligence  far  above  this  material 
world,  and  its  mechanism  in  search  of  the  cause  and  the 
cause  of  all  cause,  the  source  of  all  being,  all  wisdom,  jus- 
tice and  love,  prompts  it  and  presses  it  onward  from  the 
finite  to  the  infinite,  the  timely  to  the  eternal,  the  perish- 
able to  the  absolute,  the  manifold  and  fragmentary  to 
unity  and  oneness.  Nothing  within  the  bounds  of  human 
knowledge  is  so  eminently  and  excellently  fitted  to  rouse  and 
raise  the  intelligence  as  is  the  contemplation  and  cogita- 
tion of  the  one,  infinite,   absolute,  only   and  true   God. 


vs.  PROPELYTIZI.\(J  CHRISTIANITY.  59 

This  is  the  influence  of  your  religion  on  the  mundane  ad- 
vantages of  man,  on  his  morals,  morality  and  intelligence, 
which  are  the  great  factors  of  happiness,  and,  as  stated 
already,  of  immortality  and  eternal  bliss.  This  solves  the 
historical  riddle  of  Israel's  covenant  with  God,  preserva- 
tion and  selection  by  benign  Providence,  Israel's  superior 
morality  and  intelligence  among  the  nations,  which  even 
his  enemies  of  to-day  loudly  proclaim  as  the  cause  of  their 
hatred  against  God's  chosen  people. 

And  now  comes  the  conversionist,  and  with  fair  or  foul 
means  urges  on  us  the  particular  Christology  of  this  or  that 
sect,  the  morals  of  which  are  far  below  the  ethical  code  of 
Judaism,  and  the  morality  which  it  produced  rendered 
visible  also  to  the  cursory  inspector  in  the  large  pictures  of 
public  government  and  its  history  of  eighteen  centuries,  and 
prevailing  yet  in  the  majority  of  Christian  countries,  stands 
far  below  the  Hebrew  ideal ;  that  very  Christology  which 
cripples  the  intelligence  by  imposing  upon  it  myths  and 
legends,  mysteries  and  impossibilities,  to  drag  it  down  from 
its  height  of  buoyancy  and  freedom  into  the  dim  and  dusky 
dale  of  uninquired  faith  and  direct  opposition  to  reason's 
rights  and  reason's  growth;  that  Christology  which  robs 
man  of  the  highest  ideal  of  intelligence,  brings  the  eternal 
Deity  down  to  the  painful  and  helpless  condition  of  a  suffer- 
ing man  dying  on  Mt.  Calvary,  and  thus  destroys  reason's 
fulcrum  to  lift  up  the  intelligence  to  the  highest  and  holiest, 
above  this  earth,  above  this  cosmos,  to  the  eternal,  infinite 
and  absolute ;  that  Christology  which  they  seek  to  impose 
on  you,  and  others  consider  this  offering  mundane  advan- 
tages. We  compare  notes  theoretically  and  practically,  on 
earth  or  in  heaven,  in  morals  or  intelligence,  and  necessar- 
ily find  Judaism  in  every  point  far  above  Christology,  and 
can  not  condescend  to  it.  It  can  never  become  the  world's 
religion,  while  denationalized  .Judaism  forces  its  way  far 
and  wide  and  with  a  wonderful  rapidity  in  this  nineteenth 
century,  the  future  world's  religion,  with  which  Christology 
has  no  more  in  common  than  Brahminism  and  Buddhism, 
Zabian,  or  Greco-Roman  Paganism  have  in  common  with 
the  modern  sciences  of  physics  and  chemistry.     The  world 


60  A  DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM. 

will  not  accept  Christology  as  a  religion,  nor  will  the  He- 
brews do  it.  It  can  accept  only  that  which  is  in  harmony 
and  unison  with  reason,  which  Christology  is  not  and  can 
never  be,  as  its  expounders  and  advocates  freely  admit.  It 
is  mystery  depending  on  faith,  neither  of  which  subjects  it- 
self to  reason,  and  the  leading  persons  of  the  human  family 
reason.  The  Hebrew  who  submits  his  intelligence  to  de- 
menting mysteries,  gives  up  his  ghost.  Decapitation  can  not 
produce  that  person's  mundane  happiness.  If  there  is  no 
salvation  in  truth  there  is  certainly  none  in  fiction.  If 
there  is  damnation  in  reason,  truth  is  a  forlorn  and  forsaken 
widow,  and  the  prince  of  falsehood  is  the  world's  poten- 
tate. So  likewise  in  all  mundane  affairs,  if  reason  is  not 
the  main  factor  to  produce  happiness,  then  folly,  ignorance 
and  stupidity  are,  which  is  good  doctrine  for  all  who  wish 
to  return  to  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt  or  to  the  primeval  for- 
ests of  barbarism.  The  religion  of  intelligence  teaches 
mundane  happiness,  freedom,  progress  of  law  and  civiliza- 
tion, onward  to  the  postulate  of  reason  and  the  loftiest 
standard  of  morals.  The  religion  which  teaches  mysticism 
as  the  tutor  and  taskmaster  of  reason,  teaches  the  progress 
of  stupidity,  slavery  and  fanaticism.  The  Hebrew  will 
never  submit  to  Christology. 


CHAPTER  VIIT. 

NO  CHRI8T0L0GY  IN  THE  BIBLE. 

WE  love  the  Christian  as  our  fellow-man  and  Christian- 
ity as  a  daughter  religion  of  our  own.  The  injuries  of 
the  past  we  have  forgotten  long  ago,  the  liberty,  justice 
and  humanism  of  the  present  day  are  *'  bone  from  my 
bone  and  flesh  from  my  flesh,"  as  was  Eve  from  Adam,  re- 
uniting and  fraternizing  the  discordant  elements  of  so- 
ciety, "  and  they  shall  be  one  flesh,"  one  organic,  sound 
and  sane  body.  For  all  that,  and  with  the  best  will  to 
please  our  neighbors,  we  can  not  discover  Christology  in 
the  Bible,  nor  can  we  persuade  ourselves  that  it  is  a  re- 
ligion in  harmony  with  the  divine  principles  acknowl- 
edged as  such  by  Jew  and  Gentile.  It  will  sound  some- 
what harsh,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that 

The  whole  Christology,  as  carried  along  in  the  books  of  dog' 
matic  theology,  the  special  creeds  and  catechisms  of  Christian 
sects,  is  the  loork  of  human  ingenuity  and  scholastic  specula- 
tion, without  any  solid  foundation  in  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures. 

It  is  an  established  principle  with  philosophers  of  his- 
tory that  all  violent  eruptions  of  fanaticism,  so  numerous 
in  Christendom,  are  not  the  effects  of  religion,  which  to  be 
true  must  be  benign  and  tolerant ;  they  are  the  effects  of 
errors  and  aberrations,  the  excrescences  of  religion — noth- 
ing is  too  good  for  man  to  be  abused— which  produced  the 
horror  of  ignited  fanaticism.  It  is  no  less  evident  that  the 
outrages  committed  in  Christendom  in  the  name  and  be- 
half of  religion,  of  Christians  against  fellow-Christians — 
these  are  most  numerous — .Jews,  Mohammedans,  American 
Indians,  philosophers,  infidels,  schismatics  and  sectarian?,, 
up  to  the  murdering  of  Mormon  elders  and  oppressing 

Jews  in  Russia  and   Roumania  invariably  originated  in 

(61) 


•62  A   DEFENSE   OF   JUDAISM 

Christology  as  momentarily  understood  in  this  or  that 
state  or  church.  This  always  was  and  is  now  the  incentive, 
the  fire  brand,  the  dynamite  bomb,  working  destruction. 
It  seems,  therefore,  logically  correct  to  maintain  that 
Christology  is  no  religion,  it  is  an  excrescence  thereof,  and 
whoever  contributes  a  straw  to  reform  and  correct  it  does 
so  much  humane  work.  It  would  seem  strange  that  in- 
telligent men  shut  their  eyes  to  these  facts,  if  we  would 
not  know  how  bribery  makes  the  seeing  blind,  how  pru- 
dence seals  the  lips  of  the  wise,  how  the  dicta  of  self- 
preservation  override  all  other  considerations,  and  chiefly 
how  subjective  knowledge,  like  imagination,  holds  in  bond- 
age the  understanding  of  millions. 

Opposite  the  Orthodox  Israelite,  however,  the  Christian 
conversionist  defends  this  and  all  the  other  weak  points  of 
Christology  with  the  very  convenient  argument  of  super- 
natural revelation,  from  which  there  is  no  appeal  to  reason. 
Ood  did  so  or  said  so,  and  your  highest  virtue  is  to  believe 
it,  howe  ver  absurd  it  may  appear  to  your  frail  and  narrow 
reason.  Then  he  shows  you  how  all  this  was  predicted  by 
the  Old  Testament  prophets,  and  fulfilled  in  the  New  by 
the  Evangelical  drama ;  the  New  Testament,  he  says,  is  the 
continuation  and  completion  of  the  Old ;  how  can  you  help 
believing  it  as  a  Divine  revelation? 

The  intelligent  Israelite,  of  course,  would  say,  if  indeed 
it  was  prophesied  in  the  Old  Testament  that  God  will  over- 
shadow the  affianced  bride  of  a  man,  and  the  child  thus  un- 
naturally produced  will  not  be  a  human  being,  but  God 
himsslf,  and  also  a  son  of  David,  and  that  God,  son  of 
David,  appeared  on  earth  for  the  sole  purpose  of  suffering 
painful  death,  in  order  to  expiate  the  sins  of  man,  to 
appease  God,  who  is  also  the  crucified  man  himself;  I 
would  think  at  once,  either  that  those  prophets  must  have 
been  under  the  influence  of  delusive  visions,  which  they  ex- 
pounded contrary  to  the  religious  teachings  of  Moses  and 
the  other  prophets,  or  I  myself  labor  under  a  delusion  and 
am  unable  to  understand  those  prophecies ;  for  both  can 
not  be  true — they  contradict  and  exclude  one  another.  The 
New  Testament  can  no  more  be  the  continuation  and  com- 


vs.  PROSELYTIZINc;    CilltlSTIAXITY.  63 

•pletion  of  the  Old  than  the  incarnation  of  Buddha,  the  Hin- 
doo Trinity,  the  sufferings  of  Prometheus  or  the  sacrifie  of 
Mesha's  son  can  be  the  continuation  of  the  Koran,  as  they 
have  nothing  in  common  besides  the  various  points  in 
ethics. 

The  Israelite  who  knows  and  tolerably  well  understands 
his  Bible  would  simply  say  :  Show  me  in  this  entire  book 
one  passage  which  informs  me  that  (a)  God  said  he  will 
some  time  be  not  God,  but  a  man — God  his  own  and  also 
David's  son;  (b)  God,  the  Creator  of  all  things,  will  have  a 
mother,  who  is  also  his  spouse  ;  (c)  God  will  die  on  the  cross 
because  he  could  not  otherwise  forgive  the  sins  of  man  ;  (d) 
God  will  rise  from  the  dead,  ascend  to  heaven  and  sit  at  his 
own  right  hand. 

Or  if  that  Israelite  be  a  little  more  generous  and  consider- 
ate, and  the  conversionist  more  enlightened  and  liberal,  he 
would  ask  of  the  zealous  man  to  show  him  anywhere  in  the 
Bible,  not  in  dubious  and  equivocal  terms  which  everybody 
could  expound  to  suit  his  preconceived  notions,  but  in  clear 
and  intelligible  words — 

(a)  that  God  promised  to  send  a  Messiah,  the  son  of  David 
or  any  other  man,  to  save,  redeem,  ransom  or  liberate  the 
people  of  Israel,  any  other  people  or  individual,  when  the 
word  Messiah  never  occcurs  in  the  Prophets*  except  as 
a  title  of  an  anointed  high  priest  and  the  kings  Saul,  David, 
Solomon  and  the  heathen  Cyrus  (Isaiah  xlv.).  when  there 
is  not  the  mention  of  or  allusion  to  any  Messiah  to  come,  or 
any  savior  to  reconstruct  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  the  throne 
of  David,  or  to  save  a  soul  in  the  whole  realm  of  God's  ex- 
istence. 

(b)  If  by  exegetic  or  homiletic  artifice,  by  disjoining  pas- 

*  In  Psalms  ii  it  refers  to  Solomon.  In  Lamentations  iv  20,  it  re- 
fers to  King  Joyakin  (2  Kings)  carried  captive  to  Babylon  (2 
Kings  xxiv.  8-16)  being  the  son  of  Joshiah,  who  was  again  king  of 
all  Israel.  He  was  called  again  Messiah.  Psalms  Ixxxix.  52  refers 
to  the  same  king  and  catastrophe.  In  all  earlier  Psalms  the  term 
Messiah  refers  to  David  or  Solomon.  Psalms  cv.  15,  Messiah  oc- 
curs in  the  plural  number,  and  refers  to  the  Patriarchs,  as  is  evi- 
dent from  the  context. 


64  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

sages  from  their  context  and  conjoining  the  distant  phrases 
centuries  apart  from  one  another,  one  can  discover  some  or 
another  martyr  savior  to  be  sent  to  Israel  or  other  people  ; 
how  do  you  know  that  it  must  refer  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth? 
Perhaps  it  refers  to  Judah  Maccabee,  to  his  brothers  Jona- 
than and  Simon,  to  Simon  Bar  Cochba  or  any  other  of  the 
heroic  martyrs  who  sacrificed  their  lives  to  save  God's  peo- 
ple and  their  religion,  or  the  prophecies  are  not  yet  but  will 
be  fulfilled  in  eome  person  who,  for  all  we  know,  may  appear 
any  da}' ;  your  kabbalistic  construction  of  prophecies  will  fit 
to  the  one  as  well  as  the  other.  We  know  for  sure  that  the 
Maccabean  brothers  did  die  in  defense  of  the  sacred  cause 
and  did  save  it,  where  is  your  evidence  that  Jesus  saved  one 
in  heaven  or  on  earth?  You  must  know  that  on  earth  hu- 
man nature  is  the  same  as  it  was  thousands  of  years  ago, 
the  crimes,  vices  and  corruptions  are  all  the  same ;  and  that 
which  transpires  in  heaven  you  do  not  know  and  can  not 
show. 

(c)  If  by  some  means  or  other  the  mystic  expounder  of 
Holy  Scriptures  could  overcome  d.fficulties  a  and  6,  he 
would  have  to  meet  this  third  point,  viz  :  What  entitles  any 
reader  of  the  prophecies  to  the  supposition  that  any  prophet 
had  in  view  a  very  distant  future,  when  in  most  instances 
they  spoke  plainly  of  present  affairs  and  their  next  conse- 
quences, where  they  do  go  beyond— they  merely  repeat  or 
expound  tbe  words  of  Moses.  The  prophets  to  whom  the 
conversionist  refers  lived  betweeen  800  and  450  B.  C, where 
is  the  rational  ground  for  maintaining  that  those  patriotic 
seers  were  at  any  time  so  flighty  and  visionary  as  to  leave 
the  solid  ground  of  present  events  and  their  probable  out- 
comings,  fly  600  to  800  years  into  the  future  and  prophesy 
— what?  the  coming  of  a  Messiah  who  would  overthrow  and 
uproot  the  covenant  and  the  faith  of  Israel,  especially  if  one 
knows  that  no  such  an  idea  as  a  coming  Messiah,  crucified 
or  glorified,  martyred  or  triumphant,  c  mid  possibly  be  dis- 
covered in  Moses  as  little  indeed  as  any  sanction  of  poly- 
theism or  trinitarianism ;  and  furthermore  if  all  those 
prophetical  passages  to  which  expounders  of  Christology 
refer  can  very  easily  and  with  much  more  justice  be  ex- 


vs.  PROSELYTIZIN(;  CHRI^JTIAXITY.  65 

plained    by  concurrent  events   and   their   nearest  conse- 
quences. 

(d)  Then  comes  the  last  resort,  the  priest's  dodge,  telling 
you:  "That  is  what  your  rabbis,  what  all  unenlightened, 
obdurate  and  blind  infidels  say.  You  must  be  regenerated, 
born  again,  get  religion,  viz  :  that  special  kind  of  Christian 
religion;  then  you  will  understand  Scriptures  and  prophe 
cies  in  their  true  light  by  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  you 
will  pri'tna  vista  discover  the  Messiah  and  the  Church  on 
every  page  of  the  sacred  volume  "  The  argument  in  other 
wo'ds,  is  this  :  Whenever  you  will  firmly  believe  the  Chris- 
tian story  and  have  subjected  your  reason  to  this  belief,  you 
will  approach  the  sacred  volume  with  this  prejudice  domi- 
neering your  soul,  then  you  will  find  in  it  all  points  which 
you  presupposed;  or  in  other  words,  if  you  believe  the 
Evangelical  story,  you  will  believe  to  see  it  predicted  by  the 
Hebrew  prophets.  That  is  the  way  true  Christians  read  the 
Old  Testament.  It  will  do  well  for  believers,  but  is  very  poor 
logic  for  other  people  They  Will  argue  :  Then  it  is  God's 
fault  that  we  can  not  see  your  Christology  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, as  he  dictated  those  predictions  to  ths  prophets  in 
such  a  style  that  the  Christians  only  can  understand  Ihem 
and  we  can  not.  We  can  not  imagine  that  the  All-wise  is 
such  an  unskilled  and  obscure  writer  that  only  th  jse  should 
be  able  to  understand  him  whose  mind  is  in  a  state  contrary 
to  reason ;  for  what  is  it  to  get  religion,  to  be  regenerated, 
to  bscome  converted,  if  it  is  not  a  suspension  of  reason  and 
a  submission  thereof  to  a  faith  contrary  to  reason?  The 
question  then  arises  :  What  is  it  in  any  particular  case,  is  it 
not  an  emotional  insanity,  a  fit  of  indigestion,  an  attack  of 
hysterics,  melancholia,  or  distemper,  or  any  nervous  disor- 
der? None  can  tell.  Thus  much  is  sure,  if  it  is  not  by 
reason,  it  is  by  imagination  or  disease.  We  can  not  ex 
pect  that  one  in  such  a  state  of  mind  knows  and  under- 
stands better  than  we  do. 

The  Hebrew,  however,  will  say  :  Nothing  reasonably  en- 
titles you  in  any  state  of  mind  to  claim  that  your  ancestors 
and  teachers  understood  the  Hebrew  Bible  better  than 
ours  did,  and  these  consistently  and  positively  deny  the 


66  A    DEFENSE    OF    JUDAISM. 

existence  of  any  prophecy  or  allusion  in  the  Bible  to  the 
Christian  story  or  Christology.  No  rational  man  claims  to 
understand  the  Greek  or  Latin  classics  better  than  the 
Greeks  or  Romans  did  ;  how  could  the  ex-heathens  of  for- 
eign tongues  have  understood  the  Hebrew  Bible  better 
than  the  Hebrew  in  his  own  country  up  to  400  A.  C  ?  The 
authors  of  the  Christian  books,  it  seems,  Paul  excepted, 
did  not  even  know  the  Hebrew,  for  all  their  quotationa  in 
the  Gospels,  Acts  and  most  of  the  Epistles  are  from  the 
Greek  translation  called  Septuagint,  and  not  from  the  He- 
brew Bible,  and,  what  is  most  remarkable,  Jesus  also,  ac- 
cording to  the  Synoptics,  quoted  from  the  Greek  and  not 
from  the  Hebrew  original.  No  intelligent  man  will  ever  be 
able  to  convince  himself  that  the  Christian,  because  he  is  a 
Christian,  understands  the  Hebrew  Bible  better  than  the 
Israelite,  because  he  is  no  Christian,  as  little  as  one  could 
admit  that  the  Latin  or  Germanic  Christian  understands 
the  Koran  better  than  the  Arab  does. 

After  this  general  review  of  the  Scriptural  argument  in 
support  of  Christology  it  will  be  proper  to  review  in  detail 
the  various  Bible  passages  in  this  connection,  with  which 
we  begin  in  the  next  chapter,  although  as  long  as  these  gen- 
eral arguments  are  not  refuted,  a  review  of  the  details 
would  seem  superfluous,  and  we  do  not  apprehend  a  suc- 
cessful refutation  from  any  of  the  conversion  agents  or  so 
cieties.  As  a  general  thing  they  do  not  argue  at  all,  they 
preach,  which  is  quite  wholesome  for  believers  and  does 
not  require  much  brain  work.  The  pulpit  is  no  forum  and 
Christolog}'^  is  no  philosophy,  hence  those  gentlemen  argue 
not,  they  merely  state. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


NO  CHRISTOLOGY  IN  MOSES. 


THE  ancient  Hebrews  called  God,  the  Supreme  Beings 
Eloiiim,  as  is  recorded  in  the  first  verse  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. With  Moses,  we  are  inf6rmed,  there  came  the  word 
Jehovah,  the  tetragrammaton,  the  ineffable  name  of  the 
Supreme  Being,  tJniQiDn  DB*.  In  course  of  time  Jehovah 
became  among  the  Hebrews  the  only  proper  name  of  God, 
and  the  word  Elohim  was  used  in  the  appelative  form.  It 
was  applied  to  pagan  gods,  to  judges,  also  to  angels,  so 
that  if  applied  to  the  one  and  only  God  it  was  necessary  to 
say  Ha-Elohim,  the  Elohim,  as  we  now  spell  Lord  with  a 
capital  L,  if  it  is  intended  to  designate  God.  Scriptures 
contain  many  other  terms  designating  the  Supreme  Being, 
like  Ail  Shaddi,  "the  Self-sufficient  All-supporter,'*  Ail 
Elyon,  •'  the  Most  High,"  Adoni,  "  the  Ruler  or  Governor," 
Hat-zur,  "the  Rock,"  in  later  times  connected  with 
Zebaoth,  "  Lord  of  Hosts,"  in  royalistic  times  also,  Melech, 
"  King,"  and  other  appelatives,  but  these  two  names,  Elohim 
and  Jehovah,  were  most  frequently  and  alternately  used 
to  designate  the  one  and  only  God.  This  is  best  illustrated 
by  the  very  first  sentence  of  the  Decalogue,  beginning, 
*'  And  Elohim  spake  all  these  words,  sayings  I,  Jehovah,  am 
thy  Elohim,  who,"  etc. ;  the  Shema,  "  Hear,  Israel,  Jehovah 
is  our  Elohim,^'  etc.,  and  by  the  people's  exclamation  on  Mt. 
Carmel,  "Jehovah,  he  is  the  Elohim^  In  this  connection, 
however,  we  need  not  define  all  these  terms,  we  have  only  to 
place  in  proper  light  the  term  Elohim. 

Elohim. 

The  two  words,  Jehovah  and  Elohim,  are  purely  Hebraic, 
they  are  found  in  no  other  language.  Elohim  is  supposed 
by  trinitarians — not  by  many  now  any  more — having  the 

(67) 


68  A  DEFENSE  OF  JUDAISM 

plural  form  "  im,"  suggests  a  plurality  of  Deity.  It  is  the 
plural  of  Elovahh.  Against  this  we  have  to  say,  if  Elohim 
^means  more  than  one  God,  it  does  not  necessarily  mean 
trinity ;  it  may  mean  the  two  gods  of  Zoroaster,  or  the  thou- 
sands of  heathendom.  In  this  latter  signification  the  term 
appears  even  in  the  Decalogue,  but  as  trinity  it  appears  no- 
where in  the  Old  or  New  Testament.  But  it  is  no  plural, 
although  it  ends  in  "  im,"  like  Shomayim,  "heaven  ;  "  Mayirriy 
"water;  "^  Chayim,  "life;"  Neurim,  "youth;"  Panim, 
"  face ;  "  Mitzraim,  "  Egypt ;  "  Yermhalaiiriy  "  Jerusalem," 
and  many  other  Hebrew  words,  which,  as  in  other  lan- 
guages, have  the  plural  form  and  singular  signification. 
It  is  a  prehistoric  term,  preceding  the  pure  monotheism  of 
Abraham,  and  was  originally  coined  to  designate  the  Deity 
as  the  unity  and  source  of  all  elements  and  forces  of  na- 
ture. When  Abraham  discarded  that  pantheism  he  could 
not  banish  the  word  from  the  language,  but  coined  the 
more  spiritual  name  of  El-Shaddi,  "  the  Self-sufficient,  All- 
supporting  Power."  This  was  still  too  materialistic  for 
Moses,  and  he  named  the  Deity  by  the  purely  abstract  term 
of  "  Absolute  Existence,"  which  is  the  tetragrammaton, 
without  eliminating  the  older  terms  from  the  language. 
When  the  Christians  of  the  fourth  century  advanced  the 
Elohim  argument  in  favor  of  the  trinity,  we  see  from  Tal- 
mud Babli  and  Yerushalmi,  the  rabbis  pointed  to  all  pass- 
ages in  the  Bible  where  the  verb  with  Elohim  as  its  subject 
is  always  in  the  singular  number ;  hence  it  could  not  have 
l)een  understood  as  a  plural.  Besides  that  Elohim  is  purely 
Hebraic,  and  is  employed  by  Moses  and  the  Prophets.  You 
might  just  as  well  suppose  to  find  Baal,  Ormuzd,  Zeus  or 
Jupiter  in  the  New  Testament  as  a  trinity  or  polytheism  in 
the  Old,  esp3cially  in  Mos3s,  who  might  be  called  the  arch- 
enemy of  all  such  speculations.  He  advances  that  God 
himself  told  him,  "No  m:in  can  see  me  and  live,"  which, 
translated  in  our  language,  says,  if  God  indeed  were  triune, 
man  could  not  know  it,  for  none  could  know  the  nature,  es- 
sence or  substance  of  the  eternal  Deity.  We  know  not 
what  life,  intellect,  or  even  what  force  is,  how  should  we  be 
able  to  comprehend  what  the  source  and  substance  of  life 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  69 

and  intellect,  the  power  of  all  powers,  is  in  his  very  nature? 
In  nature  and  revelation  there  is  but  one  God  discern- 
ible ;  if  the  Christian  believes  three  in  one  he  must  have 
learned  it  from  another  revelation  or  imagination,  being 
neither  in  reason  nor  in  nature ;  in  revelation  it  is  certainly 
not,  the  New  Testament  positively  knows  nothing  of  the 
trinity,  and  the  Old  certainly  not ;  hence  the  dogma  is  a 
piece  of  imagination  hatched  out  in  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries  to  adjust  contradictory  statements  of  the  Gospels 
and  various  traditional  beliefs  concerning  the  offices,  per- 
son and  nature  of  the  Messiah,  who  was  son  of  David  to 
the  nascent  church,  Metathron  to  Paul,  Logos  to  John,  and 
finally  one  of  the  trinity  to  ex-heathens,  hanged  according 
to  Peter,  crucified  according  to  Paul,  ascended  and  deified 
according  to  the  church.  That  is  all  right  to  the  Christian, 
but  when  the  conversionist  comes  with  that  matter  to  the 
Jew  he  must  tell  him  it  is  a  piece  of  speculation,  originat- 
ing in  imagination,  which  neither  Moses  and  the  Prophets 
nor  any  other  Jewish  mind  could  ever  hatch  or  advance. 
The  Jew  always  had  too  much  respect  for  the  very  name  of 
God  and  was  too  realistic  a  reasoner,  alwavs  remaining 
Avithin  the  bounds  of  nature,  to  hit  upon  such  an  idea ;  the 
Kabbalah  grew  upon  Hindo-Parsic  Christian  soil. 

GKNESIS  I.  26. 

But  here  it  is  written  in  the  same  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 
that  God  said,  *'  Let  us  make  man,"  does  not  God  speak  of 
himself  in  the  plural  number  as  potentates  and  newspaper 
editors  do,  and  it  can  not  be  said  of  God  that  the  idiosyn- 
crasy of  an  imagined  self-importance  and  self-aggrandize- 
ment swells  his  head  to  the  bombastic  "  we,"  consequently 
here  is  the  declaration  that  God  is  a  plurality.  True,  it  may 
just  as  well  mean  a  thousand-fold  or  a  dual  God  as  trinity, 
but  the  Christian  comes  to  the  passage  with  the  trinity  pre- 
judice, hence  this  "  we  "  signifies  to  him  a  triune  God.  The 
non-Christian,  however,  observes  in  that  very  same  passase 
all  verbs  in  the  singular  number,  "  God  made  "  the  "body  of 
clay.  "  God  blew  in  his  nostrils  "  the  spirit  of  life,  **  God 
created  ^nan  "  when  the  soul  changed  the  form  of  clay  into 


70  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISJi 

a  God-like  being,  and  all  these  verbs  are  in  the  singular 
number.  This  "  we"  must  be  plural,  says  one  party,  "  God 
held  a  counsel  with  the  family  on  high,"  says  another,  and 
the  one  piece  of  exegesis  is  as  good  or  as  bad  as  the  other, 
for  neither  of  them  is  based  upon  the  terms  or  the  spirit  of 
the  whole  piece  in  which  the  expression  occurs.  Here  in  the 
first  place  we  are  told  that  God  *'  created  "  first  of  all,  heaven 
and  earth.  Any  child,  almost,  can  see  that  this  means  that 
God  first  created  nature  with  its  forces,  laws,  harmony  and 
material.  After  that  first  deed  of  the  Almighty  he  creates 
no  more  except  animal  life  (verse  21)  and  human  nature 
(verse  27),  where  the  verb  bara,  "he  created,"  occurs  again ; 
because  animal  life  is  justly  supposed  to  be  a  new  creation, 
it  is  not  discernible  in  physical  nature  ;  human  nature,  with 
its  superior  intellect,  ideality,  mental  variability,  and  that 
wonderful  capacity  of  education  and  elevation  to  all  con- 
sciousness, is  again  a  new  creation  in  addition  to  animal  life. 
In  all  other  acts  of  creation,  the  word  "  created  "  is  used  no 
more  ;  God  "  said  "  let  there  be  light,  let  the  water  be  gath- 
ered together,  let  the  earth  sprout  grass,  let  there  be  lumina- 
ries, let  the  water  abound  in  moving,  living  beings,  let  the 
earth  bring  forth  li\dng  beings,  etc.  That  is,  God  commands 
and  nature  works  in  obedience  to  each  command.  Man  be- 
ing a  product  of  nature  and  a  special  creation  of  God,  it  is 
quite  plain  that  he  said  to  creative  nature  in  this  case,  "  Let 
us  make  man."  Those  mystic  Rabbis,  who  made  angels  of 
nature's  forces  understand  the  passage  that  God  counseled 
with  them ;  the  trinitarian,  however,  has  nothing  in  that 
grand  piece  of  Scripture  to  support  his  supposition. 

GENESIS  XIV.  4;  XXXII.  25. 

The  funniest  piece  of  exegesis  is  that  the  318  men  who 
went  to  war  with  Abraham  (Genesis  xiv.  14),  signify  Jesus, 
who  was  the  army  of  Abraham,  although  ID'  in  numerals 
makes  but  316,  and  yet  Barnabas  says  it  was  the  greatest 
truth  he  ever  uttered.  Next  to  it  comes  that  the  man  who 
wrestled  with  Jacob  till  the  morning  dawned  (Genesis  xxxii. 
25)  was  also  Jesus,  which  gave  rise  to  the  English  phrase, 
he  wrestles  with  the  Lord.    That  Eesh,  "  man,"  mentioned 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING  CHRISTIANITY.  71 

there  in  course  of  time  grew  into  an  angel  (Hosea  xii.  4-6), 
and  with  Christian  interpreters  it  became  Jesus,  although 
that  whole  story,  says  Maimonides,  was  a  dream,  or  as  that 
other  man  aays,  he  (Eesh)  must  have  been  a  freebooter,  that 
wanted  to  rob  Jacob,  and  this  "  other  "  man  appears  to  have 
a  correct  understanding  of  the  obscure  passage.  Legends 
grow  in  proportion  to  the  distance  from  their  source.  (Com- 
pare Exodus  xiv.  with  Psalms  cxiv.) 

GENESIS  XLVIII.  16. 

When  Father  Jacob  said  to  the  sons  of  Joseph,  "  The 
angel  that  redeemed  me  from  all  evil,  may  bless  the  lads," 
he  certainly  did  not  think  of  a  redeemer  to  make  his  ap- 
pearance on  earth  fifteen  centuries  later;  such  a  power  of 
prediction  was  not  given  to  Jacob.  Nor  was  the  Messiah 
expected  to  be  of  Ephraim  or  Manasseh.  He  certainly 
thought  of  his  own  iron  will  and  unshaken  faith  in  the  jus- 
tice and  goodness  of  Providence,  which  was  his  angel  re- 
deeming him  from  all  the  evil  which  he  encountered  on  life's 
meandering  path,  therefore,  he  continued,  "May  there  be 
called  upon  them  my  name,  and  the  name  of  my  ancestors," 
i.  e.,  this,  our  character,  may  be  duplicated  in  the  lads  thus 
blessed.  This  is  a  blessing  indeed  worthy  of  a  venerable 
patriarch  to  bestow  upon  his  grandsons,  as  we,  under  such 
circumstances  might  say,  may  the  character  of  our  family  be 
continued  and  honored  in  your  lives,  my  sons. 

GENESIS  XLIX.  10. 

But  then  comes  Jacob's  blessing  to  Judah,  "  the  scepter 
shall  not  depart  from  Judah  "  (Grenesis*xlix.  10) ;  therefore 
the  Messiah  had  to  be  a  son  of  David,  who  was  a  scion  of 
Judah,  simply  because  Jacob  said  so,  although  it  is  not 
maintained  there  that  God  said  so  to  Jacob.  This  is  a  piece 
of  misinterpretation  common  to  both  Jews  and  Christians. 
It  is  ridiculous  to  suppose  that  the  shepherd  prince  Jacob 
knew  anything  of  a  scepter  which  a  thousand  years  after 
that  still  was  a  thing  unknown,  unknown  even  to  David  and 
Solomon,  to  all  the  kings  of  Judah  and  Israel,  and  all  other 
kings  of  that  high  antiquity.     The  man  who  speaks  the  lau- 


72  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

guage  of  nature  so  forcibly  that  he  compares  his  sons  to  the 
lion,  wolf,  ass,  serpent,  speaks  also  of  so  artificial  a  thing  as 
a  scepter,  as  a  symbol  of  royalty,  although  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage has  many  centuries  later  to  adopt  the  term  "  Sharbit " 
(in  Esther)  to  name  that  thing.  In  the  same  place  the  word 
"  Shebet "  occurs  three  times ;  twice  it  is  rendered  "  tribe," 
but  that  once  it  must  mean  scepter,  because  prejudiced  ex- 
pounders want  it  so,  and  Shiloh,  then  the  capital  of  Canaan 
(Joshua  xviii.),  must  signify  Messiah.  You  might  just  as 
well  say  that  Salem,  Jerusalem  or  Philadelphia  means  Mes- 
siah. The  worst  in  the  case  is,  the  scepter  did  not  come  into 
the  hands  of  Judah  until  about  six  hundred  years  after  Ja- 
cob's death,  and  was  lost  again  and  never  restored  586  B.  C, 
and  previous  to  that  time,  after  the  death  of  King  Solomon, 
Judah  ruled  itself  and  Benjamin  only,  it  wielded  no  scepter 
over  Israel  any  more.  If  Jacob  prophesied  the  royal  suprem- 
acy to  Judah  for  all  time  to  come,  he  must  have  been  a 
verj""  poor  sort  of  a  prophet  The  verse  in  question  must  be 
rendered  by  any  honest  translator  : 

"No  tribe  shall  turn  from  Judah, 
And  the  commander  from  between  his  feet  (warriors), 
Until  he  shall  come  to  Shiloh  (capital  of  Canaan), 
And  nations  (of  Canaan)  shall  have  submitted  to  him  " 

This  translation  is  literal.  Honest  men  can  see  no  more 
in  it  than  Jacob's  will  that  the  tribes  should  remain  united 
with  Judah,  who  should  lead  them  in  the  conquest  of  the 
land  of  Canaan  and  be  their  head  until  this  is  accomplished 
excluding  every  idea  of  prophecy;  and  this  was  literally 
carried  out.  Judah  always  was  in  the  van  (Numbers  ii. ; 
Joshua  xiv.  6  to  xv.*  63  and  xviii.  1 ;  Judges  1.  1,  2. ) 

DEUTERONOMY   XVni.   9-12. 

The  prophet,  however,  whom  God  promised  to  Israel 
(Deuteronomy  x\4ii.  9-21),  that  means  Jesus  surely,  says 
the  Christian  exegetic,  namely,  he  who  does  not  read  the 
whole  passage;  which  can  surely  not  mean  that  or  any 
other  Messiah.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  stated  that  the 
prophet  promised  should  be  "  like  Moses,"  and  Moses  was 
no  god,  no  son  of  a  god,  and  no  person  in  the  trinity ;  it 


vs.  rROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  73 

was  not  his  mother,  but  his  sister,  that  was  called  Miriam, 
and  Joseph  was  not  his  father,  but  his  gi'eat-great-grand- 
uncle;  there  exists  no  more  similarity  between  Moses  and 
Jesus  than  between  the  architect  of  a  grand  structure  and 
the  fresco  painter  that  decorates  some  of  its  rooms.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  stated  there  plainly  enough  that  Israel 
should  not  be  dependent  for  the  knowledge  of  God's  will 
on  sorcerers,  diviners,  astrologers,  necromancers,  thauma- 
turgists,  and  the  like,  but  God  will  always  send  them  a 
prophet  like  unto  Moses,  who  should  announce  to  them  the 
divine  messages,  '*  to  whom  ye  shall  hearken,"  and  not  to 
impostors  like  those  who  mislead  the  Gentiles.  If  the 
promise  does  not  mean  that  God  would  always  send 
prophets  to  Israel,  as  he  actually  did,  but  waited  fifteen 
hundred  years  till  he  kent  his  word,  then  Israel  was  per- 
mitted, or  rather  forced,  all  that  time  to  consult  those  im- 
postors concerning  the  will  of  God,  and  yet  the  Law  and 
the  Prophets  forbid  this  repeatedly  and  expressly,  and  Saul 
already  made  the  attempt  to  drive  that  kind  of  people  from 
the  land,  although  he  did  not  succeed  fully.  (1  Samuel 
xxviii.  9.)  A  man  who  gave  his  sanction  to  the  same 
superstition  which  Moses  promised  should  be  prevented  and 
replaced  by  divine  messages,  viz :  the  existence  and  de- 
moniac power  of  the  evil  spirits,  as  Jesus  did,  was  certainly 
no  prophet  like  ISIoses,  who  denounced  this  and  every  other 
superstition  of  that  kind,  nor  could  he  be  the  prophet  pre- 
dicted by  Moses.  With  that  piece  of  exegesis  Christian  in- 
terpreters did  a  poor  kind  of  business,  for  thoy  must  admit 
that  Jesus  anyhow  was  only  like  Moses,  hence  he  was  no 
god.  Then  they  must  admit  that  either  all  the  ghost 
stories  of  the  New  Testament  are  fabulous,  or  Jesus  was 
not  the  prophet  promised  to  Israel.  And  lastly  they  must 
confess  that  either  God  did  not  fulfill  his  promise  and  keep 
his  word  for  fifteen  centuries,  till  the  Messiah  appeared, 
then  nobody  could  think  or  imagine  that  this  was  the  man 
whose  coming  Moses  prophesied,  and  all  prophets  before 
him  must  have  been  counterfeits  ;  or  they  must  admit  that 
the  promise  means  that  each  time  will  have  its  prophet  in 


74  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

Israel,  which  admission  is  equal  to  a  confession  that  their 
interpretation  is  false. 

These  misinterpretations  alone  seem  sufficient  to  honest 
expounders  of  the  Bible  to  send  that  whole  canon  of  exe- 
gesis to  oblivion,  and  to  characterize  conversion  agents  still 
harping  on  those  often  refuted  arguments  either  as  wilful 
impostors,  or  too  ignorant  to  read  intelligently  what  is  be- 
fore them  in  Scriptures  as  plain  as  daylight,  as  men  under 
the  influence  of  an  idiosyncrasy  generally  do. 

GENESIS  III. 

Therefore  it  will  hardly  be  considered  necessary  to  enter 
upon  any  special  argument  on  Genesis  iii.,  containing  that 
beautiful  and  instructive  fable  of  Mother  Eve's  enticement 
by  the  beguiling  and  cunning  serpent,  turned  and  twisted 
into  the  fall  of  man,  the  original  sin,  the  necessity  of  re- 
demption and  the  other  dogmas  connected  therewith. 
Since  there  is  no  clue  whatever  in  the  whole  of  Moses' 
writings  to  any  Messiah  or  redeemer,  of  any  kind  of  redemp- 
tion except  from  the  bondage  of  Egypt,  the  fable  can  not 
be  expounded  by  such  a  hypothesis.  No  person  has  a  right 
to  expound  any  document  by  an  event  which  transpired 
thousands  of  years  j^ost  fcstum,  how  much  less  then  a  fable 
which  may  mean  a  dozen  diflferent  things,  of  which  we 
have  no  longer  any  knowledge.  If  so  important  a  code  of 
religion  as  Christology  maintains  to  be  was  hidden  under 
that  fabulous  garb,  we  would  have  a  right  to  censure  its 
author  in  harsh  terms  for  his  unkindness  and  unfairness  of 
burying  so  important  a  lesson  of  salvation  under  so  child- 
like and  delusive  a  little  story,  subject  to  any  amount  of 
different  interpretations.  If  any  lesson  of  particular  relig- 
ious import  was  contained  in  the  little  story,  some  one  of 
the  prophets  must  have  alluded  to  it,  which,  however,  is 
not  the  case  anywhere  in  the  Bible  The  passages  in  the 
Talmud  referring  to  it  were  produced  from  300  to  500  years 
after  the  origin  of  Christianity,  and  are  no  more  than 
thoughtless  repetitions  of  what  Christian  exegetics  had  ad- 
vanced. It  need  hardly  be  said  that  this  is  certainly  also 
the  case  in  the  Kabbalistic  literature,  it  being  generally  be- 


vs.    PROSEI.VTIZlXr,    CHRISTIANITY.  75 

lieved  now  that  Zohar  is  the  product  of  the  twelfth  or  thir- 
teenth Christian  century. 

Whatever  the  import  of  Genesis  iii.  is,  the  form  is  that  of 
the  fahle.  The  speaking  animal,  in  this  case  the  serpent,  is 
<;haracteristic  of  the  fable.  It  appears  that  the  author  be- 
gins this  narrative  with  the  word  Vehannachash,  "  And  the 
serpent,"  in  quite  an  unusual  way,  to  tell  us  at  once  that 
this  is  a  fable.  Christian  and  Kabbalistic  expounders 
maintain  the  serpent  was  not  that  animal,  it  was  the  evil 
one,  although  it  is  said  expressly  in  the  text  that  it  was  the 
most  cunning  of  all  the  beasts  of  the  field  which  God  had 
made,  that  an  enmity  should  always  exist  between  the  seed 
of  the  woman  and  the  seed  of  the  serpent,  and  the  evil  one, 
to  the  best  of  our  knowledge,  had  no  children.  If  Satan  it 
was,  why  did  that  author  not  call  the  thing  by  its  right 
name?  How  could  we  think  of  a  personal  Satan  if  the 
writings  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets  negate  and  exclude 
the  existence  of  that  prince  of  pessimism?  If  he  indeed 
meant  Satan  when  he  said  serpent,  how  could  the  ex- 
pounders know  it,  if  they  are  no  prophets?  The  serpent 
has  to  remain  a  serpent  and  a  speaking  animal  which  rea- 
sons and  argues,  hence  the  story,  however  didactic,  in- 
structive, suggestive  and  philosophical,  remains  a  fable, 
which  no  sensible  man  will  take  to  be  the  fundamental 
structure  of  the  religion  and  salvation  of  the  human  family. 
And  yet  the  whole  of  Christology  falls  to  the  ground  if  this 
story  is  not  literally  understood,  as  its  expounders  do.  That 
is  like  building  a  tower  upon  a  woman's  thimble. 

None  can  read  the  introductory  chapters  of  Genesis 
without  feeling  that  one  of  the  objects  of  that  author  was  to 
dethrone  the  gods  of  ancient  heathenism,  which  benighted 
the  nations  of  culture,  especially  in  the  original  home  of 
Abraham,  Ur  of  Chaldea,  and  in  Egypt,  The  earth,  the 
sea,  the  elements,  together  with  all  living  beings,  the  sacred 
animals  and  vegetables  of  Egypt  included,  are  not  only 
one  God's  creatures  and  subject  to  his  will,  they  are  even 
placed  under  the  control  of  man,  who  should  subdue  them 
and  have  dominion  over  all  living  beings ;  hence  they  are 
no  gods,  not  as  much  divine  even  as  man  is,  who  was 


76  A    DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

made  in  the  image  of  his  Maker.  When  he  comes  to  sun^ 
moon  and  stars,  then  most  universal  objects  of  worship,  he 
speaks  extensively  of  the  purpose  of  the  Creator  in  pro- 
ducing those  luminaries,  saying  in  as  many  words,  clearly 
and  distinctly,  these  are  certainly  no  gods,  there  are  no  ter- 
restrial and  no  celestial  gods.  The  serpent  also  was  one  of 
the  gods,  an  important  figure  in  ancient  mytholog3\*  Gen- 
esis iii.  deposes  that  supposed  divinity.  Perhaps  that  i» 
the  principal  import  of  the  fable.  But  there  remained  one 
most  dangerous  divinity,  more  dangerous  even  than  earth 
and  heaven,  elements,  luminaries  and  sacred  animals,  and 
that  is  man.  Also  this  divinity  is  overthrown  in  Genesis 
iii.,  which  tells  us  man  is  so  long  a  sort  of  a  god  on  earth 
aa  he  lives  in  obedience  to  God's  will  and  command ;  when 
he  rebels,  is  led  astray  by  his  lower  instincts  and  the  specu- 
lations prompted  by  them,  he  is  driven  out  of  paradise, 
and  his  godhead  vanishes. 

This  seems  sufficient  moral  for  one  didactic  fable.  But 
there  appears  to  be  much  more  in  it.  Various  hypotheses  and 
theories  have  been  advanced,  but  none  as  little  as  the  Chris- 
tian conception  affords  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  mysteri- 
ous trees  of  knowledge  and  life,  the  Cherubim  and  the  flaming 
and  revolving  sword,  and  the  truly  enigmatical  words  after 
the  supposed  fall :  "And  Jehovah,  Elohim,  said,  behold  man 
hath  become  like  one  of  us  (or  one  of  its  kind)  to  know  good 
and  evil  "  (Genesis  iii.  22),  corresponding  to  the  words  of  the 
serpent  (verse  4).  This  sounds  as  though  by  this  act  of  eat- 
ing of  the  forbidden  fruit,  human  nature  had  been  per- 
fected and  finished,  not  that  man  fell,  but  he  rose  to  a  higher 
state  of  perfection.  All  of  it  may  or  may  not  have  been 
intended  to  dethrone  heathen  deities  and  deified  man  espe- 
cially ;  still  none  can  tell,  with  any  degree  of  certainity,  what 

*  Dr.  Moriz  Winternitz,  of  Vienna,  pupil  of  Prof,  Buehler  and  as- 
sistant of  Prof.  Max  Mueller,  has  just  published  in  the  Miltheiluvg>n 
der  Anthropologischen  Gesellschaft,  of  Vienna,  an  interesting  mono- 
graph of  forty-three  pages  on  the  Old  Indian  Serpent  cult.  The 
arguments  are  chiefly  derived  from  Assyrian  sources,  Pali,  San- 
skrit, Zend,  etc.,  but  the  Semitic  scholars  will  find  many  points  re- 
lating to  the  Serpent  cult  in  the  Bible  and  among  the  Arabs. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  77 

the  author's  actual  intention  was,  to  what  end  he  employed 
those  s3^mbols,  and  symbols  only  they  can  be,  as  is  the  speak- 
ing and  arguing  serpent. 

Still  if  we  admit  the  Christian  conception  of  the  fall  of 
man  and  original  sin,  although  it  does  not  explain  those 
symbols  and  words,  it  does  not  benefit  Christology,  and 
proves  nothing  in  its  favor.  This  sin  could  have  poisoned 
only  Cain  and  Abel,  for  after  these  are  disposed  of  in  Scrip- 
ture, we  are  told  that  Sheth  was  born  in  his  likeness  and 
image,  viz  :  of  Adam,  who  was  made  Bidmuth  Elohim,  "  in 
the  likeness  of  God,"  which  certainly  signifies  uncorrupted, 
sinless.  (Genesis  v.  1-3.)  If  Sheth  was  born  in  the  likeness 
of  Adam,  and  Adam  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  God,  then 
Sheth  must  have  been  born  also  in  the  likeness  of  God,  with- 
out the  poison  of  the  original  sin.  If  this  is  so — and  none 
can  see  why  it  should  not  be — the  original  sin,  if  inheritable, 
would  cling  only  to  the  seed  of  Cain,  and  those  only  to  the 
fourth  generation.  (Exodus  xx.  5;  xxxiv.  7.)  Ifit  be  main- 
tained that  this  law  of  God  was  not  in  operation  yet,  and  all 
the  descendants  of  Cain  inherited  the  poison,  or  it  be  even 
maintained  that  the  seed  of  Sheth  also  inherited  the  same 
poison,  it  would  not  benefit  Christology ;  for  all  Cainites  and 
Shethites,  except  Xoah  and  his  family,  perished  in  the  Deluge, 
and  it  is  stated  clearly  and  expressly  in  Scriptures  that 
Noah  was  free  of  all  iniquities.  "  Noah  was  a  righteous  man, 
perfect  was  he  in  his  generation,  with  God  did  Noah  walk," 
or  conduct  himself.  (Genesis  viii.  9.)  There  is  no  trace  of  any 
iniquity  or  sin  whatever.  In  chapter  ix.  we  are  told  that  God 
blessed  Noah,  precisely  as  he  did  Adam  before  he  sinned 
(Ibid.  i.  28),  and  then  that  God  made  a  covenant  with 
Noah,  or  rather  continued  with  him  the  original  covenant 
made  with  man  and  mankind.  In  all  this  not  the  shadow 
of  original  sin  or  the  fall  of  man  is  perceptible,  nor  does  the 
Bible  an3'where  refer  to  it  again.  Consequently  if  Genesis 
iii.  is  to  be  understood  in  the  Christian  sense,  it  must  any- 
how be  admitted  that  consequences  of  the  first  parents'  sin 
did  not  extend  beyond  the  fourth  generation  of  Cain,  or  at 
the  utmost  it  certainly  was  wiped  out  in  the  Deluge.  Then 
Noah  was  the  promised  redeemer,  if  one  was  promised,  and 


78  A    DEFENSE   OF   JUDAISM. 

after  him  no  redeemer  was  necessary,  and  none  appeared  ex- 
cept redeemers  from  oppression,  slavery,  despotism,  de- 
moralization and  corruption,  the  first  of  which  was  Moses, 
and  the  last  to  date  George  Washington. 


CHAPTER  X. 

NO    CHRISTOLOGY    IN    ISAIAH. 

THERE  are  some  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  to  which 
conversion  agents  never  refer,  perhaps  because  their 
knowledge  of  that  book  reaches  not  beyond  that  limited  num- 
})er  of  prophetical  oracles,  which,  so  to  say,  are  their  stock  in 
trade.  Some  of  those  neglected  passages  are  very  interest- 
ing.    Let  us  quote  some  : 

"  Put  not  your  trust  in  princes,  in  the  son  of  man,  in  whom 
there  is  no  salvation.  When  his  spirit  goeth  forth,  he  re- 
turneth  to  his  (native)  earth:  on  that  very  day  perish  his 
thoughts.  ( But)  happy  is  he  who  hath  the  God  of  Jacob 
for  his  help,  whose  hope  is  on  the  Lord  his  God,  who  hath 
made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea  and  all  that  is  therein; 
who  keepeth  truth  forever."  (Psalms  cxlvi.  3-6.) 

If  this  is  a  prophecy,  is  it  not  very  plainly  to  the  effect 
that  none  should  put  his  trust  in  the  hero  of  the  Evangel- 
ical story,  the  son  of  man,  as  he  called  himself,  in  whom 
there  is  no  salvation ;  death  cut  short  his  career,  defeated 
his  schemes,  while  He  who  is  the  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth 
liveth  and  keepeth  his  word  forever?  It  looks  rather  like  a 
passage  written  long  after  the  crucifixion,  when  the  son  of 
man  had  grown  into  a  prince  of  salvation  among  his  Bible- 
expounding  disciples.  Still  we  know  that  this  Psalm  was 
there  long  before  the  year  one.  I  had  an  idea  that  it  referred 
to  Deuteronomy  xiii.  2-6. 

"  If  there  arise  in  the  midst  of  thee  a  propliet,  or  a 
dreamer  of  dreams,  and  he  giveth.  thee  a  sign  or  a  token,  and 
the  sign  or  token  come  to  pass,  whereof  he  spoke  unto  thee, 
saying.  Let  us  go  after  other  gods,  which  thou  dost  not  know, 
and  let  us  serve  them,  then  shalt  thou  not  hearken  unto 
the  words  of  that  prophet,  or  unto  that  dreamer  of  dreams  ; 
for  the  Lord  vour  God  proveth  you  to  know  whether  you  in- 

(79) 


80  A  DEFENSE  OF  JUDAISM 

deed  love  the  Lord  your  God  with  all  your  heart  and  with 
all  your  soul.  After  the  Lord  your  God  shall  ye  walk,  and 
him  shall  ye  fear,  and  his  commandments  shall  ye  keep,  and 
his  voice  shall  ye  ohey,  and  him  shall  ye  serve,  and  unto 
him  shall  ye  cleave.  And  that  prophet  or  that  dreamer  of 
dreams  shall  be  put  to  death,  because  he  hath  spoken  revolt 
against  the  Lord  your  God,  who  hath  brought  you  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt,  and  who  hath  redeemed  you  out  of  the  house 
of  bondsmen,  to  mislead  thee  from  the  way  which  the  Lord 
thy  God  commanded  thee  to  walk  therein  ;  and  thou  shalt 
put  the  evil  away  from  the  midst  of  thee." 

But  it  seems  I  fell  iiito  the  same  error  as  the  conversion- 
ists  do,  for  the  Messiah  of  the  Synoptics  at  least  never'said 
that  he  was  a  god,  or  a  son  of  God,  hence  did  mislead  none 
to  worship  other  gods  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  taught  his  disci- 
ples to  pray  to  "  Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven,"  exactly  as 
the  Hebrews  did  to  D'CCZC  ^r3N.  * 

Let  us  read  some  interesting  passages  from  Isaiah.  In 
chapter  xliii.  the  prophet  opens  in  these  solemn  words : 
"  Thus  saith  Jehovah,  thy  creator,  O  Jacob,  and.  thy  maker, 
0  Israel,  fear  not,  for  I  have  redeemed  thee :  I  have  called 
thee  by  my  name,  mine  thou  art."  Then  he  goes  on  with 
promises  of  redemption  (from  Babylon)  until  he  reaches 
the  following  climax :  "  Ye  are  my  witnesses,  saith  the 
Lord,  and  my  servant,  whom  I  have  chosen  in  order  that 
ye  may  know  and  believe  me,  and  understand  that  I  am 
he;  before  me  there  was  no  God  formed,  and  after  me  tliere 

*  It  is  strange  that  the  learned  expouaderd  of  Christology  never 
paid  any  attention  to  this  law  of  Moses,  which  so  plainly  ordains 
that  the  prophet  "syho  proposes  to  his  cotemporaries,  "  Let  us  go  and 
worship  other  gods,"  should  be  put  to  death.  If  Jesus  did  main- 
tain that  L  e  was  a  god  or  a  person  of  the  trinity,  performed  those 
niracles  to  prove  his  divinity,  and  exacted  of  his  disciples  faith  in 
his  own  divinity,  any  criminal  court  acting  under  the  laws  o  Mo- 
ses was  obliged,  the  fact  being  proved,  to  have  him  put  to  death  ; 
and  yet  in  the  trials  preceding  the  crucifixion,  also  according  to 
John,  no  reference  to  this  law  is  made.  This  ought  to  be  sufficient 
proof  to  believers  that  the  son  of  man  never  claimed  to  be  more 
than  man. 


V8.    PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  81 

will  be  none.  I  am  the  Lord,  and  besides  nie  there  is  no 
Savior.  I  myself  have  announced  it,  and  I  have  saved, 
and  I  have  let  it  be  heard,  and  there  was  no  strange  (god) 
among  you;  and  ye  are  mv  witnesses,  saith  the  Lord,  I  am 
God." 

In  the  same  strain  (xliv.  6)  that  prophet  says :  "  Thus 
saith  Jehovah.  King  of  Israel  and  redeemer,  even  Jehovah 
Zebaoth,  I  am  the  first,  and  I  am  the  last,  and  besides  me 
tliere  is  no  God  I  am  Jehovah,  this  is  my  name,  and  I 
will  not  give  my  honor  to  another,  or  my  praise  to  idols." 
(Ibid.  xlii.  8.)  "  I  am  Jehovah,  and  besides  me  no  God ;  I 
will  help  thee,  if  thou  even  didst  not  know  me.  That  all 
may  know  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  and  from  the  west 
that  there  is  naught  besides  me,  I  am  Jehovah  and  none  be- 
sides." (Ibid  xlv.  5-6.)  "Am  not  I  Jehovah,  and  there  is  no 
other  God,  besides  me  there  is  no  righteous  God  and  no  Sa- 
vior. Turn  unto  me,  and  be  ye  saved  all  ends  of  the  earth, 
fori  am  God  and  none  besides  "  (xlv.  22.) 

These  interesting  passages  from  Isaiah  inform  everybody 
that  this  prophet  did  not  and  could  not  think  that  God,  in 
whose  name  he  speaks,  ever  would  create  or  otherwise 
produce  another  God,  or  any  demi-god  with  whom  he 
should  divide  his  glory  and  the  veneration  due  to  him 
alone.  If  this  is  a  declaration  of  theological  principle,  it 
declares  clearly  and  intelligibly  enough  the  fallacy  of  the 
trinitarian  doctrine  and  the  man-worship  connected  with  it ; 
if  it  is  a  prophecy,  it  declares  in  advance,  and  in  the  name  of 
God,  that  the  whole  of  Christology,  with  its  scheme  of  salva- 
tion, is  of  human  invention,  unjustly  and  illegitimately 
propped  on  some  misinterpreted  passages  from  Scriptures, 
against  which  the  prophet  in  advance  cautioned  his  people. 

Aside  of  that,  however,  these  passages  are  of  peculiar  in- 
terest also  in  this  respect.  The  Church  believes  that  the 
sixty-six  chapters  of  that  book  were  written  by  the  one 
and  the  same  Isaiah.  And  yet  the  same  church  which 
reads  these  unequivocal  declarations  of  the  prophet 
against  all  kinds  of  polytheism,  trinitarianism,  any  and 
every  kind  of  redeemer  or  savior,  points  almost  exclusive!}'' 
to  the  same  Isaiah — and  this  is  done  in  the  Gospels — for 


82  A    DEFENSE    OF    JIDAISM 

oracles  that  predicted  the  miraculous  birth,  life,  work  and 
death  of  the  Messiah  who  certainly  was  "  another  god  "  as 
long  as  he  wore  baby's  clothes  or  man's  habiliment  and 
walked  about  on  this  earth,  and  remained  that  "  other  god," 
to  whom  prayers  are  still  addressed  and  homage  is  done  at 
least  every  Sunday,  and  every  feast  instituted  in  honor  of  his 
name.  Those  good  people,  clinging  to  their  subjective 
knowledge,  have  no  idea  how  paganized  they  are  in  theory 
and  practice,  and  how  self-contradictory  their  allegations 
are,  wherever  they  attempt  to  prop  the  Evangelical  story  by 
passages  from  the  Old  Testament.  But  we  who  labor  not 
under  the  burden  of  that  subjective  knowledge,  we  consider 
it  an  irrevocable  truism,  that  — 

The  prophet  like  Isaiah  with  these  emphatic  declarations  of 
the  purest  monotheism,  which  exclude  in  the  Deity  all  kinds  of 
dualism  or  trinitarianism,  all  conceptions  of  plurality,  corporeal- 
ity and  anthropomorphism,  could  not  possibly  intend  with  any 
of  his  projphecies  to  predict  the  coming  of  any  son  of  god,  any  di- 
vine messiah  or  supernatural  redeemer  or  savior,  person  of  the 
trinity,  or  any  other  superhuman  being.  Therefore  every  pre- 
sumption of  discovering  Christological  predictions  in  any  pro- 
phetical passage  must  be  the  outcome  of  prejudice  and  misinter- 
pretation. 

Isaiah  (chapter  vi. )  and  Ezekiel  (chapter  i.)  describe 
their  sublime  visions  of  the  Marcabah,  "Throne  of  Glory."' 
They  inform  us  that  they  saw  their  Seraphim,  Cherubim, 
Ophanim,  Hayoth,  Hashmalim,  all  in  the  plural  number, 
poetical  figures  with  wings  of  fantastic  shapes,  colors  and 
movements.  But  they  saw  no  son  of  God  anywhere  If 
such  a  conception  had  ever  been  in  their  minds,  they  would 
have  seen  it  in  their  prophetical  vision  just  then  and  there. 
Iftheydidnot  see  him,  we  certainly  could  not.  William 
Gesenius  and  other  Christian  expounders  of  the  book  of 
Isaiah,  Psalms  and  such  other  books,  have  given  up  the 
idea  of  finding  Messianic  predictions  in  those  books,  but  the 
conversionist  has  his  own  canon  of  exegesis  and  clings  to 
old  errors,  because  he  can  do  no  better.  If  Isaiah,  for  in- 
stance, did  not  predict  that  particular  Messiah,  there  not 
only  exists  no  biblical  proof  that  he  was  a  Messiah  at  all,  but 


vs.  PROSELY'TIZIXG  CHRISTIANITY.  83 

the  Gospel  itselr  must  contain  at  least  as  many  errors  as  it 
has  references  to  that  prophet.  The  general  principle  just 
laid  down  shows  the  impossibility  of  actually  discovering 
such  predictions  in  Isaiah,  hence  the  conversionist  can  do 
no  better  than  cling  tenaciously  to  his  old  errors. 
Let  us  point  out  some  of  them. 

ISAIAH  VII.  14. 

This  verse  is  translated  in  the  English  Bibles  :  "  Behold  a 
virgin  shall  conceive  and  bear  a  son  and  shall  call  his  name 
Emanuel  "  In  Matthew  i.  23  it  reads  :  "  Behold  a  virgin 
shall  be  with  child,  and  shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and  they 
shall  call  his  name  Emanuel."  This,  says  Matthew,  refers 
to  the  son  of  Mary,  although  none  before  him  nor  any  of  the 
Gospel  writers  after  him  ever  understood  it  so,  none  referred 
to  this  supposed  prophecy  b;;sides  Matthew ;  and  what  is  still 
more  surprising,  Jesus  knew  nothing  of  this  miracle,  never 
refers  to  it,  and  vulgarly  calls  his  mother  woman,  and  Mary 
also  evinces  no  knowledge  of  it,  and  calls  him  Joseph's  son. 
(Luke  11.48-50.) 

If  we  say  that  but  two  words  in  the  translation  of  that 
verse  are  correct,  viz  ;  hen  and  shemo,  we  do  not  exaggerate. 
Let  us  see : 

Ha-Almah  does  not  mean  "  a  virgin ;  "  it  means  the 
maiden,  or  this  young  woman  Bethulah  is  the  Hebrew 
term  for  a  virgin,  and  without  that  Ha. 

Haraii  does  not  mean  "  shall  conceive,"  which  would  be 
Theherah;  it  means  she  is  with  child,  as  is  evident  from  the 
parallel  passage,  Genesis  xvi.  11,  hence  she  was  no  virgin.* 

Veyoledeth  is  not  in  the  future  tense,  it  is  the  present 
participle,  feminine  gender,  not  she  shall  bear  a  son ;  it 
means  (as  the  next  verb  proves)  and  thou  (woman)  bearest 
a  son  (now  or  shortly  thereafter).! 

*  In  the  case  of  Hagar,  who  certainly  was  pregnant  when  the 
angel  spoke  to  her,  the  angel  addresses  to  her  precisely  the  same 
words  as  the  prophet  does  to  this  Ahnah.    ]2  m^l"!   niH  ■J2n 

+  In  the  case  of  the  mother  of  Samson  (Judges  xiii.),  who  was  not 
pregnant  yet  when  the  angel  spoke  to  her,  the  same  terms  are  used 


84  A    DEFENSE    OF    Jl'DAISM 

Vekarath  does  not  mean  "  and  she  shall  call,"  or  else  it 
must  read  Vethikra;  it  means  thou  (woman)  callest  his 
name. 

Emanoel  is  not  Jesus ;  he  is  not  called  so  anywhere. 
The  translator,  following  Matthew,  makes  of  that  verse 
Hinnah  Bethulah  Theherah,  Vetholid  hen  Vethikra  Shemo 
Yishu,  so  that  nothing  remains  of  the  original  paragraph 
except  the  words  ben  and  shemo, 

A  woman  standing  before  him  is  addressed  by  the 
prophet,  as  also  the  situation  there  in  Isaiah  and  Kings 
show.  Ahaz,  the  King  of  Judah,  is  threatened  an  invasion 
of  his  capital  by  the  Kings  of  Israel  and  Syria,  which  was 
about  ten  to  twelve  years  prior  to  the  fall  of  Samaria. 
Ahaz  wants  to  call  to  his  assistance  Tiglath  Pileser,  King  of 
Assyria,  and  did  finally  do  so,  which  the  Prophet  Isaiah  just- 
ly opposes,  because  he  dreaded  the  invasion  of  Palestine  by 
that  warlike  king  and  people  ;  and  his  apprehension  proved 
to  be  well  grounded,  for  in  a  few  years  later  Assyria  over- 
threw the  Kingdom  of  Israel,  and  Sennacherib  would  have 
captured  Jerusalem,  if  he  had  not  lost  his  army  under  its 
walls.  All  this  is  clearly  sketched  in  2  Kings  and  2  Chron- 
icles. Isaiah  tries  to  dissuade  King  Ahaz  from  his  scheme 
of  purchasing  the  assistance  and  invasion  by  the  Assyrian, 
and  tells  King  Ahaz  that  God  gives  him  a  sign  to  assure 
him  that  those  enemies  would  not  conquer  him,  and  that 
both  countries  which  now  distress  him  would  be  depopu- 
lated before  the  child  of  the  Almah,  even  if  fed  on  milk  and 
honey,  would  be  old  enough  to  despise  evil  and  to  choose 
good.  It  is  absurd  to  maintain  that  this  sign  referred  to 
an  event  to  come  to  pass  seven  hundred  years,  or  even  one 
year  later,  when  Isaiah  spoke  to  King  Ahaz.  Therefore  the 
passage  must  read  as  said  :  A  young  woman,  perhaps  the 
queen,  being  in  an  advanced  stage  of  pregnancy,  standing 
before  them,  the  prophet  says :  This  woman  will  give 
birth  to  a  son  —  and  this  was  the  sign — whom  she  might 

in  the  future  tense  (verse  4).  p  m^"!  fT'lHI  The  passage  in  Isaiah 
is  an  imitation  of  the  ab  ^ve  two,  as  is  the  angel  coming  to  Mary. 
Therelore  Matthew  quotes  the  passage  from  Isaiah. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZIN(J  CHRISTIAXITV.  85 

call  Emanuel,  *'  God  with  us,*'  for  he  will  not  permit  those 
two  kings  to  conquer  this  country. 

The  irrefutable  proof  for  this  conception  of  the  matter  is 
the  beginning  of  Isaiah  viii.,  where  it  is  narrated  that  the 
same  sign  was  given  before  two  high-ranked  witnesses,  as 
the  king  rejected  the  prophet's  sign  and  message  ;  then  fol- 
low the  prophecies  in  viii.  4,  the  same  precisely  as  in  vii.  16. 
Then  in  viii,  18  he  refers  to  both  cases,  that  the  signs  given' 
had  been  fulfilled  literally,  the  two  boys  had  been  born  as 
predicted;  therefore  his  prophecies  ought»to  be  believed  in 
])reference  to  the  necromancers  and  sorcerers,  that  most, 
likely  advised  the  king  contrary  to  Isaiah's  predictions 
Now  take  up  the  book  and  read  from  Isaiah  vii.  to  viii.,  in- 
clusive, and  you  will  be  astonished  how  glaringly  absurd 
the  Christological  exegesis  is. 

ISAIAH  IX.  5,  6. 

In  the  same  connection  a  number  of  oracles  follow  after 
each  other,  all  in  reference  to  the  Assyrian  invasion.  King 
Ahaz  disobeyed  the  prophet,  sent  an  embassy  with  heavy 
sums  of  money  to  Tiglath  Pileser  (2  Kings  xvii.  8,  9),  who 
invaded  Syria  and  decimated  it.  Now  the  prophet  an* 
nounces  his  oracles  as  to  the  consequences  ot  this  invasion, 
which  will  not  end  with  the  overthrow  of  the  two  kingdoms 
of  Israel  and  Syria,  hitherto  Judah's  protection  against 
Assyria,  but  Judah  also  will  be  invaded  and  hard  pressed 
by  the  enemy  whose  friendship  King  Ahaz  bought  so  dearly  ; 
hut  Judah  will  not  perish,  it  will  be  saved  by  the  successor 
of  King  Ahaz,  the  then  crown  prince  Hezekiah,  in  reference 
to  whom  he  says,  what  the  English  version  renders  :  "  For 
unto  us  a  child  will  ho  born,  a  son  will  be  given,  and  the 
government  shall  be  on  his  shoulders,  and  his  name  shall 
be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  the  Mighty  God,  the  Ever- 
lasting Father,  the  Prince  of  Peace."  This,  of  course, 
must  refer  to  that  Messiah  that  should  come  700  to  750 
years  after  that,  although  the  prophet  always  speaks  of  the 
present  distress,  and  of  one  who  should  deliver  Judah  from 
the  power  of  that  invader  (Sennacherib).  The  whole,  how- 
ever, is  another  abuse  and  misrepresentation  of  Scriptures 


SO-  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

for  dogmatic  purposes.  The  verbs  ytUlad  and  nitthan  are  in 
the  absolutely  past  tense,  can  only  be  translated  in  the  past, 
tense,  "  A  child  was  born  to  us,  a  son  was  given  to  us,"  they 
can  refer  only  to  a  person  born  long  before  those  words 
were  spoken,  and  can  not  be  tortured  to  refer  to  one  to  be 
born  700  years  later.  To  whom  did  the  prophet  refer?  To 
one  who  will  take  the  government  upon  his  shoulder,  which 
could  be  the  then  Crown  Prince  Hezekiah  only,  who  was 
then  from  twenty-three  to  twenty-five  years  old.  He,  the 
Prophet  believed,  will  change  the  pernicious  and  God-defy- 
ing policy  of  his  father,  Ahaz.  He  will  be  heir  to  the  de- 
structive consequences  of  his  father's  policy,  the  Assyrians 
will  invade,  overrun  and  distress  the  land,  but  by  the  merits 
and  piety  of  this  prince  the  country  will  be  saved  at  last, 
and  then  he  will  be  called  "  "Wonderful."  Why  will  he  be 
called  so?  Because  he  will  be  a  mighty  strong  counsellor 
(in  time  of  national  distress),  "master  of  the  booty  "  (in 
time  of  war),  and  a  "  prince  of  peace  "  (after  the  invader 
shall  shall  have  been  expelled).  The  English  translators 
made  of  yoez  el-gihbor,  which  by  the  accents  and  good  gram- 
mar is  one  phrase,  a  noun,  yoez,  with  two  adjectives,  el  and 
gibbor,  two  phrases,  to  bring  out  "  counsellor  and  mighty 
god,"  contrary  to  the  sense  and  spirit  of  the  whole  Bible, 
which  never  calls  any  man  a  god ;  contrary  also  to  good 
grammar  and  the  Massoretic  accents.  Then  they  make  of 
Abi-ad  an  everlasting  father,  when  everybody  who  knows 
the  Hebrew  Bible  also  knows  that  ad  nowhere  signifies 
everlasting,  which  the  Hebrew  expresses  by  the  plirase 
adei-ad,  olam-woed.  Ad  as  a  preposition  signifies  a  limit  in 
space  or  time,  "  until  or  unto,"  also  "  so  that "  in  New  He- 
brew, it  never  signifies  endless  time  or  space,  hence  the 
"  everlasting  "  must  be  dropped.  Nor  docs  Abi  signify 
father,  it  signifies  progenitor,  producer,  inventor  or  master 
( Genesis  iv.  20,  21).  But  wo  know  that  Ad  in  Genesis  xlix. 
27,  signifies  "  booty,"  and  the  prophet  most  likely  referred 
to  Benjamin  as  included  in  Judah,  whom  he  calls  the  gibbor, 
and  so  he  calls  the  king  in  spe  mighty  in  strong  counsel  and 
master  or  producer  of  the  booty ;  and  the  war  over  he  is 
again  Sar  Shalom,  '■  prince  of  peace."  All  this  was  literally' 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING   CHRISTIANITY.  87 

fulfilled  in  the  days  of  King  Hezekiah.  He  was  the  great 
reformer  of  his  people  and  the  restorer  of  its  literature. 
The  Assyrian  power,  then  the  terror  of  all  adjoining  coun- 
tries, broke  down  under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  soon 
thereafter  ceased  to  exist.  The  reign  of  Hezekiah,  with  the 
exception  of  its  fourteenth  year,  was  a  period  of  prosperity, 
peace  and  glory,  literary,  moral  and  religious  triumphs. 
N()thing  of  the  kind  came  to  pass  in  the  lifetime  of  either 
the  Messiah  of  Xazareth  or  the  Messiah  of  Bethar. 

.So  frail  are  all  the  references  of  the  New  Testament  to  the 
Old,  where  the  attempt  is  made  to  prop  Christology  by  the 
oracles  of  the  old  prophets  in  Israel.  If  you  even  admit 
their  unreasonable  construction  of  those  passages,  it  proves 
nothing  in  favor  of  the  Messiah  which  it  does  not  also  in 
favor  of  Alexander  the  Great,  who  was  a  son  of  Apollo,  or 
any  other  Roman  or  Greek  who  was  a  son  of  some  god,  as 
cases  of  that  kind  were  not  rare  even  in  the  time  when  Mary 
conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  you  can  see  in  Josephus  (An- 
tiquities xviii.  3,4),  the  story  of  Paulina  and  Dicius  Mundus 
in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Tiberius  ;  and  before  that  Olym- 
pus was  full  of  gods  enamored  of  beautiful  women. 

ISAIAH    LIII. 

It  is  maintained  in  the  Gospels  that  the  passion  and  cruci- 
fixion of  the  Christian  Messiah  came  to  pass  exactly  as  pre- 
dicted in  some  chapters  of  the  Bible.  This  assumption  is 
turned  into  an  argument  by  the  conversionist  that  the  He- 
brew who  believes  in  his  Scriptures  must  also  believe  that 
this  was  the  Messiah  whose  coming  was  predicted  by  his 
prophets.  To  this,  however,  we  have  to  say,  if  all  that  is 
literally  true,  all  happened  with  that  particular  man,  as  those 
prophets  predicted,  it  does  not  prove  his  Messiahship,  for  in 
all  those  Bible  passages  not  a  word  is  said  about  any  Mes- 
siah, redeemer,  savior  or  son  of  God.  This  does  away  at 
once  with  the  conversionists'  argument.  To  this,  however, 
comes  a  second  consideration.  The  cruel  fate  of  some  suf- 
fering man  is  lamented  in  Isaiah,  not  which  he  should  meet 
in  future,  but  which  he  did  meet  in  the  past  Accidents  of 
this  kind  have  happened  so  numerously  in  the  course  of  bis- 


88  A    DKKEXSK    OF   Jl'DAISM 

tor}-  that  men  hundred.s  of  miles  and  years  apart,  having  no 
connection  with  one  another,  met  with  precisely  the  same 
fate,  good  or  ill  luck.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  be  other- 
wise among  so  many  uncountable  millions  of  human  careers, 
many  duplicates  must  occur  Besides  these  two  we  have  to 
urge  a  third  objection :  as  Hebrews,  we  could  not  believe  in 
fatalism,  because  our  Scriptures  teach  a  God  of  freedom  and 
a  free  humanity.  The  criterion  of  intellect  is  freedom,  and 
intellect  is  the  main  criterion  of  Deity  and  humanity.  "With 
us  God  is  perfect,  which  a  God  without  freedom  can  not  be, 
man  is  his  image  which  he  could  not  be  without  the  quality 
of  freedom.  That  fatalism  that  any  living  man  suffers  and 
perishes  because  the  prophet  in  the  name  of  God  did  centu- 
ries ago  foretell  it  and  as  he  did  foretell  it,  can  not  l)e  believed 
by  us,  who  are  the  children  of  the  covenant  with  the  God  of 
freedom. 

It  is  one  of  the  fallacies  of  Christology  advancing  the  be- 
liefs that  events  must  come  to  pass  literally  as  prophesied 
centuries  ago,  which  means  as  foreordained  by  Providence, 
and  then  count  it  a  merit  to  the  one,  or  a  crime  and  sin  to  the 
other,  on  whom  or  by  whom  the  inevitable  and  uncontrolla- 
ble will  of  God  as  foreordained  and  foretold  is  actualized.  In 
the  case  under  consideration  it  was  no  merit  to  Jesus  to  suf- 
fer what  he  did  suffer  under  the  ban  of  inevitable  necessity ; 
nor  could  it  be  accounted  a  crime  to  those  who  crucified 
him  under  the  compulsory  will  and  force  of  the  Deity.  The 
Hebrew  could  not  base  any  religious  belief  or  doctrine  upon 
such  a  contradiction  in  re. 

Most  disastrous  in  this  case  against  the  conversionists' al- 
legations is  the  fact  that  Isaiah  liii.  contains  no  prophecy  at 
all,  it  is  plain  narrative  of  a  past  event.  You  take  up  this 
chapter  in  the  original  and  you  discover  at  once  two  strange 
facts.  The  one  is  that  the  whole  chapter  is  not  at  all  of  the 
Isaiah  style,  and  the  second  is  that  it  breaks  the  connection 
between  chapter  lii  and  liv.  so  perceptibly  and  ostensibly 
that  no  honest  critic,  even  reading  the  translation  only,  can 
help  seeing  there  an  interloper,  the  product  of  another 
writer,  put  there  for  a  purpose.  The  same  seems  to  be  the 
case  with  Ivi.  10  to  Ivii.  13,  which  also  breaks  the  connection 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHRIST.ANITY.  89 

between  Ivi.  11  and  Ivii.  14,  is  also  written  in  the  same  style 
as  liii.,  and  on  the  same  or  a  similar  subject,  so  that  evi- 
dently those  two  pieces  were  originally  one,  belonging  to 
some  unknown  writer.  But  what  is  most  striking  in  both 
pieces  is  that  they  are  written  in  the  past  tense  and  do  not 
in  anywise  clainito  be  a  prophecy.  In  verses  10-12  occurs 
the  future  tense  in  strict  accordance  with  a  rule  in  Hebrew 
grammar.*  It  is  plain  and  unmistakable  narrative  of  the 
fate  of  a  despised,  suffering,  woe-stricken,  righteous  man,who 
bore  up  courageously  and  with  unshaken  faith  in  the  time  of 
misery,  which  brings  him  prosperity,  happiness,  victory  and 
glory  at  the  end.  The  whole  could  refer  only  to  one  who 
had  lived  before  this  chapter  was  written.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  allusion  to  an}'  future  event  in  the  whole  chapter. 

No  unprejudiced  reailer  can  find  the  Christian  Messiah  in 
that  chapter,  also  not  if  he  does  so  much  violence  to  the  text 
that  he  turns  the  past  into  the  future  tense.  In  verse  three 
it  is  said  of  that  sufifering  hero,  "  He  was  despised,  shunned 
of  men,  a  man  of  painful  afflictions  and  in  sickness  ex- 
perienced," all  of  which,  according  to  the  Evangelical  story, 
the  son  of  Mary  was  not.  None  despised,  none  shunned 
him  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  are  informed  that  thousands  of  all 
clas.«:es  of  people  came  to  him,  treated  him  quite  respectfully, 
and  many  loved  him  well.  Nor  was  he  a  man  of  sore  afflic- 
tions and  many  diseases  ;  he  is  described  rather  as  a  healthy 
and  cheerful  young  man,  free  from  bodily  blemishes  and  dis- 
eases. In  verse  9  we  are  told,  "And  he  gave  (to)  the 
wicked  ones  his  sepulcher  and  (to)  the  rich  his  height,"  or 
castle,  Jesus  had  no  sepulcher  of  his  own  to  give  away  to 
any  wicked  men,  and  certainly  no  high  place  or  castle  to 
give  to  the  rich.  In  verse  10  that  suffering  hero  is  promised 
to  see  ''  seed  (and)  length  of  days,"  and  both  terms  Sera  and 

•  It  mast  be  borne  in  mind  as  a  fixed  rule  of  Hebrew  grammar, 
that  relating  a  past  event  of  two  or  more  actions  the  verb  express- 
ing the  first  in  time  is  in  the  past  tense  and  the  succeeding  actions, 
although  also  past,  are  marked  by  the  future  tense  of  the  respective 
verb  or  verV)8  because  tlie  narrator  places  himself  in  the  time, when 
Ijis  narrative  begins  then  the  succeeding  actions  were  all  lying  in  the 
future. 


90  A  DEKENSK  OK  JIDAI.^M 

Yaarich  Vamhn,  everywhere  in  the  Bible  have  the  literal 
sense  exolusivel}',  literally  children,  descendancy  and  long 
life  on  earth,  none  of  which  was  given  to  Jesus.  The  hero  of 
Isaiah  liii  does  not  perish  in  the  sufferings,  on  the  contrary 
he  lives  to  see  all  the  blessings  showered  upon  him  from 
verse  10  to  12,  and  Jesus  did  perish  in  the  catastrophe. 

The  question  might  be  asked,  to  whom  does  that  chapter 
refer  if  not  to  the  Christian  Messiah?  It  would  be  proper 
to  say,  I  do  not  know;  I  only  know  that  it  does  not  refer 
to  any  future  event,  and  could  not  refer  to  j'our  Messiah. 
Still,  we  have  to  advance  some  rational  and  probable  prop- 
ositions in  explanation  of  that  part  of  Scriptures. 

All  kinds  of  suggestions  have  been  advanced  as  to  the 
real  subject  of  that  chapter.  It  is  the  Prophet  Jeremiah, 
says  one  class  of  expounders,  to  whose  life  of  incessant 
struggle,  sorrow,  disappointment  and  affliction  the  whole 
chapter  fits ;  and  it  was  written  shortly  after  his  death 
(Ivii.  1),  perhaps  a  funeral  oration  by  some  mourning  pa- 
triot over  that  sorely  afflicted  prophet,  who  had  suffered  so 
much  by  the  sins  of  his  people. 

Others  maintain  it  is  the  people  of  Israel,  so  often  called 
in  Isaiah  the  servent  of  the  Lord,  in  the  time  of  Cambysus 
and  Smerdes,  when  the  young  colony  was  in  great  distress, 
prohibited  to  continue  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple,  the 
land  trodden  down  by  invading  armies  alternately  from 
Persia  and  Egypt,  oppressed  by  despotic  kings,  scorned  and 
derided  by  their  neighbors  round  about,  and  coming  out 
triumphantly  in  the  days  of  Darius  II. 

Kabbalistic  expounders,  who  see  prophecy  and  mystery 
everywhere,  found  in  it  the  Messiah  ben  Joseph,  who  must 
be  slain  prior  to  the  approach  of  the  real  Messiah,  or  also 
the  right  Messiah  ben  David,  as  they  had  learned  it  from 
Christian  expounders  in  the  third  to  the  fourth  century. 

Another  opinion,  basing  on  2  Chronicles  xxxv  25,  is 
that  Jeremiah  wrote  Isaiah  liii.,  a  lamentation  on  King 
Joshiah,  after  he  had  lost  his  life  in  the  battle  of  Megido. 
But  this  seems  not  to  fit  to  the  close  of  the  chapter  from 
verse  10  to  the  end. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  91 

Still  there  are  many  other  eases  possible,  even  more 
plausible  than  the  former. 

1  It  is  a  didactic  poem  without  reference  to  any  special 
individual,  on  the  same  subject  exactly  as  the  whole  book 
of  Job  was  written,  showing  the  truly  righteous  man,  who 
in  affliction  despairs  not  of  God's  justice  and  wisdom,  and 
triumphs  at  last  over  misery  and  degradation,  as  foreshad- 
owed in  Malachi  iii.  13-18.  Isaiah  liii.  is  the  counterpart 
of  Psalms  Ixxiii.  and  xciv 

2.  It  is  the  funeral  oration  delivered  over  the  demised 
Job ;  every  word  in  Isaiah  liii.  applies  to  him  most  exactly. 
Job  lived  in  the  time  of  Daniel  and  Ezekiel,  as  the  latter 
testifies.  He  was  one  of  the  men  who  returned  from  the 
Babylonian  captivity,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Rabbi 
Jochanan  in  the  Talmud,  and  according  to  the  most  re- 
spected critics  that  was  the  exact  time  when  Isaiah  liii.  was 
written  These  obsequies  are  even  mentioned  in  the  Tal- 
mud Sotah  35. 

3.  It  is  a  panegyric  on  the  royal  sire  of  Zerubabel,  King 
Jehoiachin  or  Jekoniah,  whose  life  and  fate  correspond  pre- 
cisely and  exactly  to  the  entire  chapter  from  beginning  to 
-end.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  was  made  King  of  Judah, 
three  months  later  the  Babylonians  overran  the  country 
and  threatened  Jerusalem  with  destruction,  he  laid  down 
his  crown,  delivered  himself  up  to  the  enemy  without  a 
murmur,  and,  like  a  sheep  dragged  to  the  slaughter-pen,  he 
went  into  captivity,  left  his  family  sepulcher  to  the  wicked 
invaders,  and  his  castle  or  high  place  to  his  rich  brother 
and  successor.  He  then  was  thirty-seven  years  a  captive 
and  prisoner,  despised,  shunned,  disgraced  and  sick  on  ac- 
count of  his  people's  sins,  till  Evil  merodach  took  him  out 
of  prison  and  bestowed  upon  him  the  highest  honors  (2 
Kings  xxiv.,  xxv.  and  elsewhere).  This  was  in  the  year 
559  B.  C  In  the  year  536  Zerubabel  returned  to  Palestine 
and  so  that  king  did  see  "  seed,  length  of  days  "  If  he 
lived  yet  he  was  but  seventy-eight  years  old  when  Zerubabel 
returned.  At  any  rate  he  could  not  have  been  dead  many 
years  when  that  panegyric  was  written,  under  the  influence 
•of  the  great  prophetical  triumph,  Zerubabel  leading  home 


92  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

the  colony,  to  restore  the  ancient  kingdom,  to  rebuild  the- 
temple  on  Mount  Moriah  The  sins  of  the  king  in  his 
youth  were  forgotten  by  his  sufferings,  the  glory  of  the 
living  prince  cast  its  rays  on  the  deceased  king.  The  tra- 
ditions treat  this  king  much  better  than  sacred  history 
does,  and  Abraham  Ibn  Ezra  maintains  that  the  whole  of 
Deutero-Isaiah  (xl.-lxvi.)  was  written  by  that  very  King 
Jehoiachin,* 

It  must  be  admitted  that  any  of  these  opinions  explains 
Isaiah  liii.  better,  more  natural  and  sensible,  more  agree- 
able to  common  sense  and  history,  than  the  Evangelical 
conception  of  the  matter,  which  belongs  to  the  homiletic 
speculations  of  an  uncritical  age  and  an  unphilosophical 
school,  if  school  you  can  call  it.  Consequently  no  intelli- 
gent person  will  expect  of  the  Hebrew  to  submit  to  the  con- 
versionists'  argument,  which  has  nothing  in  its  favor  except 
the  belief  that  Jesus  indeed  was  cruciHed,  that  the  event 
transpired  exactly  as  narrated  in  the  Gospels,  and  it  was 
not  an  accident,  a  peculiar  and  accidental  concurrence  of 
two  men's  fates  turning  out  exactly  alike ;  but  that  is  the 
very  thing  which  this  portion  of  Scriptures  is  called  into 
requisition  to  prove.  If  it  does  not  prove  this  it  proves 
nothing  in  favor  of  the  conversionist,  and  in  order  to  prove 
this  the  story  must  first  be  believed.  This  is  the  regular 
vicious  circle. 

If  we  look  upon  the  New  Testament  from  the  standpoint 
which  the  English,  German  and  French  critics  established,. 
it  is  nearly  impossible  to  prove  that  any  such  person  as 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  ever  existed,  or  if  this  be  taken  for 
granted  on  the  testimony  of  Paul  and  those  passages  from 
the  Talmud  which  I  pointed  out  elsewhere,  it  is  next  to  an 
impossibility  to  point  out  with  any  degree  of  certainty  what 
he  did  or  said  and  what  his  biographers  invented  for  him. 
In  regard  to  his  crucifixion  the  proof  is  still  more  difficult 
to  produce,  because  (a)  it  is  three  times  denied  according' 
to  "  Acts  "  by  no  less  a  person  than  Peter.   (Acts  v.  30 ;  x.  39 ; 


*  See  on  this  point  Nachman  Krochmars  Moreh  NebucJiei  haz' 
Zeman,  p.  82,  e.  s. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING  CHRISTIANITY.  93 

xiii.  29).  According  to  Toland  (Nazaren,  Letter  1,  chapt.  5) 
Barnabas  maintained  in  his  gospel  that  Jesus  was  not 
crucified,  which  was  also  the  belief  of  the  Basilidians,  and 
in  this  form  the  Gospel  story  reached  Mohammed  (Koran 
iii.  53;  iv.  156).  (6)  In  the  rabbinical  traditions  he  is 
not  known  as  the  crucified  one,  but  as  '^^n  one  who  was 
lianged,  as  maintained  by  Peter  in  •'  Acts."  (c)  "  Him 
crucified  "  was  preached  by  Paul  only,  and,  according  to 
'Poland's  statement,  opposed  by  his  own  companion  and  co- 
laborer,  Barnabas.  The  crucifixion  story  in  the  Gospels 
was  written  according  to  Paul's  version  of  the  matter,  and 
contrary  to  Peter's,  and  Paul,  who  had  never  seen  Jesus, 
had  a  particular  reason  to  preach  *'  him  crucified,"  which 
rendei's  his  testimony  suspicious,  as  I  have  explained  else- 
where.* Anyhow,  there  exists  no  available  material,  out- 
side of  the  Gospel  to  establish  the  fact  that  Jesus  was 
crucified.  This  is  proof  enough  to  the  Christian,  who 
comes  to  the  matter  with  his  subjective  knowledge  and 
faith,  but  the  non-Christian  could  not  possibly  accept  this 
uncertainty,  as  the  corpus  delicti  in  the  case,  from  which  to 
conclude  that  the  prophets  predicted  it,  to  say  the  least  is 
not  produced. 

This  leads  us  to  our  point  of  conclusion.  It  is  uncertain 
that  the  Messiah  was  crucified  at  all.  It  is  impossible  that 
Isaiah  liii.  or  the  other  passages  from  the  Old  Testament 
refer  to  that  event,  hence  but  one  presumption  is  left,  viz.  : 
That  the  incidents  in  the  crucifixion  story  were  partly  in- 
vented and  partly  so  changed  and  shaped  that  they  should 
seemingly  fulfill  certain  Scriptural  tropes  and  supposed 
prophecies,  in  order  to  lead  devout  Gentiles  to  believe  that 
the  new  religion  was  the  continuation  and  fulfillment  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Paul  undoubtedly  was  the  original  author 
of  "  him  crucified,"  as  he  was  the  author  of  the  last  supper 
and  resurrection  accounts.  The  first  gospel  writer,  Mark, 
who  was  called  as  bishop  of  the  Nazarenes  from  Alexandria 
to  Jerusalem  about  130  A.  C,  wrote  the  story  in  Greek  for 
the  purpose  of  being  read  in  the  churches,  as  it  was  pro- 

*  History  of  the  Hebrews'  Second  Commonwealth. 


"94  A    I)EF£NSK    OF    JIDAISM 

hibited  b}"-  the  Emperor  Hadrian  to  read  Moses  in  the  syna- 
gogues, hence  also  in  the  churches.  His  gospel  gives  in  brief 
the  story  as  prepared  by  Paul.  Matthew  and  Luke  wrote 
alter  Mark,  not  in  Palestine,  but  in  Syria,  and  lastly  John 
wrote  in  Alexandria,  all  before  170  A.  C.  Each  of  them  took 
his  story  from  Paul  and  added  to  it  such  matter  as  he  found 
in  the  traditions  of  the  various  churches  and  his  own  a  priori 
reflections.  The  few  Jew  Christians,  who  were  called  Ebion- 
ites,  had  left  Jerusalem  in  130  A.  C.  The  gospels  were  Avritten 
for  ex  heathens  only,  who  were  not  conversant  with  the  He- 
brew Scriptures,  and  for  them  only  such  applications  could  bo 
made  of  Scriptural  passages  as  were  made  by  the  Gospel 
writers,  the  author  of  Acts  and  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
There  is  abundant  proof  in  the  New  Testament  in  support 
of  this  theory,  only  that  I  do  not  wish  to  write  the  matter 
again,  having  done  so  in  1874,  in  a  book  called  "  The  Martyr- 
dom of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  and  suliscquently  also  in  another 
book  called  "  Judaism  and  Christianity,  Their  Agreements 
and  Disagreements  "  Here  I  think  I  have  proved  my  origi- 
nal proposition,  that  the  New  Testament  is  a  continuation  of 
the  Old  by  the  grace  of  the  church  and  the  book  binder. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  Thorah,  nothing  in  Isaiah  which 
could  honestly  be  construed  to  support  or  justify  the  stories 
of  the  Gospel  upon  which  Christology  is  based. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


NO  CHRISTOLOGY  IN  JEREMIAH. 


IF  the  conversion  agent  should  call  upon  us  again,  after 
having  read  the  previous  chapters,  we  would  have  to 
ask  him  the  following  question  :  Suppose  you  would  find 
in  any  book,  ancient  or  modern,  the  stor}'  that  three  wise 
men,  magii,  princes  or  dervishes,  had  discovered  a  star, 
which  they  recognized  as  the  star  of  a  new-born  prince  of 
a  distant  country  and  this  particular  star,  moving  from 
east  to  west,  guides  those  persons  to  that  distant  country, 
end  does  it  so  exactly  that  by  it  they  discover  that  very 
stable  in  which  that  prince  was  born,  would  you  not  say 
that  this  is  plainly  a  piece  of  astrological  superstition 
woven  into  a  legend?  That  good  man,  if  an  orthodox 
Christian,  would  say  :  "  If  you  refer  to  Matthew  ii.,  I  say 
it  is  no  astrological  superstition,  it  is  a  miracle."  This 
would  but  dodge  the  question,  still  we  accept  it  was  a 
miracle,  although  skepticism  would  suggest  quite  a  num- 
ber of  objections,  such  as,  to  what  purpose  did  God  go  to 
the  far  east  to  work  a  miracle  to  no  conceivable  purpose,  as 
those  three  obscure  strangers  did  no  good  to  Jesus  or  his 
Messiahship,  and  were  never  heard  from  again ;  why  was 
not  a  miracle  wrought  nearer  home,  to  convince  such  men 
that  the  Messiah  was  born  who  could  assist  and  support  him 
and  advance  his  cause?  Why  did  God  work  this  excep- 
tional miracle,  which  became  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
cruel  slaughter  of  so  many  innocent  babes  in  Bethlehem,  if 
he  is  the  loving  father  of  man?  How  does  it  come  that  both 
the  astrological  miracle  and  the  massacre  of  the  babes  of 
Bethlehem  remained  unknown  not  only  to  all  unenlightened 
Hebrews  like  Josephus,  but  to  all  the  Gospel  writers  be- 
sides Matthew?    None  of  them,  not  even  Luke,  noticed  it 

How  does  it  come  that  Luke  contradicts  that  whole  story 

(95) 


96  A    DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

of  Matthew  except  in  one  point,  viz  :  that  Jesus  wa»borri 
in  Bethlehem?  How  is  it  that  in  this  one  point  both  record 
the  chronological  error  that  in  the  lifetime  of  Herod  I. 
Joseph  and  Mary  came  from  Nazareth  to  Bethlehem  to  be 
registered  or  counted,  because  then  the  Roman  officer  took 
the  census  of  Judea,  when  it  is  well  known  that  no  census 
could  have  been  taken  and  none  was  taken  during  the 
reign  of  Herod  or  his  son  Archelaus ;  none  could  be  taken 
before  Judea  was  a  Roman  province,  which  it  became  after 
the  banishment  of  Archelaus,  six  or  seven  years  after  the 
death  of  Herod  I ,  as  recorded  in  Josephus  (Antiquities, 
book  xviii.)?  As  long  as  these  objections  are  not  removed 
Matthew's  story  must  appear  to  every  unprejudiced  reader 
a  legend  by  or  for  a  believer  in  astrology,  to  which  class  we 
do  not  belong,  nor  did  the  Prophet  Jeremiah,  who  said  r 
*■  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Learn  not  the  way  of  the  heathen, 
and  be  not  dismayed  at  the  signs  of  heaven,  because  the 
heathens  are  dismayed  at  them,  for  the  customs  (statutes) 
of  the  Gentiles  are  vain."     (Jeremiah  x.  2,  3.) 

K  our  conversion  agent  is  well  versed  in  Christian  her- 
meneutics,  he  will  be  ready  to  reply :  "  However  improb- 
able, impossible  or  even  immoral  and  contradictory  the  two 
narratives  may  seem,  it  must,  nevertheless,  be  true,  for  so  it 
was  prophesied  especially  in 

JEREMIAH  xxxi   15-17 : 

"Thus  saith  the  Lord,  A  voice  was  heard  in  Ramah^ 
lamentation  and  biiter  weeping;  Rachel  weeping  for  her 
children,  refused  to  be  comforted  for  her  children,  because 
they  were  not.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Refrain  thy  voice 
from  weeping  and  thine  eyes  from  tears,  for  there  is  a  re- 
ward for  thy  work,  saith  the  Lord,  and  they  shall  return 
from  the  land  of  the  enemy;  and  there  is  hope  in  thy 
future,  saith  the  Lord,  that  thy  children  shall  return  to  thine 
own  border.'" 

As  this  prophecy  could  not  possibly  relate  to  the  affairs 
in  Bethlehem,  which  are  said  to  have  transpired  six  hun- 
dred years  later,  and  yet  Matthew  refers  to  it  (ii.  18)  in 
support  of  his  story;  he  betrays   himself  as  a  writer  of 


vs.    PR08KLYTIZING   CHRISTIANITY.  97 

legend,  as  he  does  with  his  other  Scriptural  quotations  in 
tlie  same  connection  (ii.  6,  15,  23  j,  the  latter  exists  no- 
where in  the  Old  Testament.  These  Scriptural  passages 
suggested  to  him  the  touching  though  superstitious  legend. 
The  whole  story  is  Derush,  a  homiletic  attempt  for  the 
edification  of  an  illiterate  audience,  then  called  Am-ha- 
retZj  as  was  the  popular  method  in  the  earlier  centuries  of 
Christianity,  some  remote  ideas  or  Biblical  tropes  were 
changed  into  a  story  for  the  purpose  of  edification.  Luke, 
who  certainly  must  have  seen  Matthew's  Gospel,  understood 
the  character  of  the  story  and  would  not  accept  it,  but 
took  its  idea  and  incarnated  it  in  an  entirely  different 
story  to  the  same  effect,  with  a  diff'erent  genealogy  and 
«oie  additions  ;  neither  of  the  two  stories  was  adopted  by 
John,  simply,  perhaps,  because  they  were  written  much 
later  than  the  two  Gospels. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah — if 
such  it  was — has  no  connection  with  and  no  reference  to 
the  Bethlehem  story.  The  voice  of  lamentation  heard  in 
Ramah  can  not  refer  to  the  lamentation  in  Bethlehem. 
Ramah  was  located  in  Benjamin  and  Bethlehem  in  Judah. 
Rachel  was  not  the  mother  of  the  Judaites,  she  was  the 
mother  of  the  Benjaminites  and  the  Ephraimites,  to  whom 
the  prophet  refers  in  the  next  verses  (xxxi.  19,  20),  Ac- 
cording to  Matthew's  story  the  verse  should  read  :  "A  voice 
was  heard  in  Bethlehem,  Leah  weeping  for  her  children,  etc." 
Besides  the  first  part  of  the  Jeremiah  passage  is  no  prophecy 
at  all,  the  verb  nishma  is  in  the  absolutely  past  tense,  the 
prophet  narrates  a  past  event,  Rachel's  voice  was  heard  in 
Ramah,  really  or  fictitiously,  some  time  before  that,  hence 
he  could  not  think  of  the  Betiilehem  aff'air.  When  her  chil- 
dren were  led  away  into  captivity,  either  the  Benjaminites 
or  Ephraimites,  the  latter  it  appears  from  verse  20  were  up- 
permost in  the  prophet's  mind,  he  prophesied  not  only  the 
restoration  of  Judah,  of  which  Benjamin  was  an  integral 
portion,  but  also  of  Israel  or  the  northern  kingdom,  of 
which  Ephraim  was  the  ruling  tribe.  The  prophecy  an- 
nounced in  this  passage  is,  "And  they  (those  captives)  will 
return  from  the  land  of  the  enemy,"  and  furthermore,  "And 


ij8  A    DEFEXjjK    of   JUDAISM 

the  sons  (of  those  captives)  will  return  to  their  borders."  So 
Jeremiah  understood  the  words  of  Moses  as  recorded  in 
Leviticus  xxvi.  38-45  and  Deuteronomy  xxx.  1-10,  and  t^o 
it  came  to  pass  seventy  years  later,  when  the  sons  of  those 
captives  returned  to  those  borders.  Nothing  of  the  kind  o  )- 
curred  after  Matthew's  Bethlehem  story,  none  returned  from 
the  land  of  the  enemy  an  1  none  came  back  home  to  their 
borders.  The  Jeremiah  prophecy  has  no  relation  whatever 
to  the  Bethlehem  story.  The  two  stories  in  Matthew  and 
Luke  were  originally  conceived,  to  connect  the  birth  of  Je 
sua  with  two  prophetical  passages  in  Micah  v.  1  and  Zacha- 
riah  ix.  9,  to  which  we  refer  in  the  last  chapter  of  this  book, 
although  the  Evangelists  did  not  know  where  or  when  Jesus 
was  born,  certainly  not  the  25th  of  December,  where  or  when 
he  died  and  was  buried ;  it  is  all  the  same  Deru^h  "  that  it  be 
fulfilled." 

JEREMIAH    XXXIII    14-26. 

Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  I  will  perform  that 
good  thing  which  I  have  promised  unto  the  house  of  Israel  and  to 
the  house  of  Judah.  In  those  days,  and  at  that  time,  will  I  cau^e 
the  Branch  of  righteousness  to  grow  up  unto  David ;  and  he  shall 
execute  judgment  and  righteousness  in  the  land.  In  those  days 
shall  Judah  be  saved,  and  Jerusalem  shall  dwell  safely  :  and  this  is 
the  name  wherewith  she  shall  be  called,  the  Lord  our  righteousness 
For  thus  saith  the  Lord  ;  David  shall  never  want  a  man  to  sit  upon 
the  throne  of  the  house  of  Israel;  neither  sliall  the  priests,  the 
Levites  want  a  man  before  me  to  offer  burnt  offerings,  and  to  kindle 
meat  offerings,  and  to  do  sacrifice  continually.  And  the  word  of  t!u> 
Lord  came  unto  Jeremiah,  saying,  thus  saith  the  Lord;  if  ye  can 
break  my  covenant  of  the  day,  and  my  covenant  of  the  night,  and 
that  there  should  not  be  day  and  night  in  their  season ;  then  may  also 
my  covenant  be  broken  with  David  my  servant,  that  he  should  not 
have  a  son  to  reign  upon  his  throne;  and  with  the  Levites,  the 
priests,  my  ministers.  As  the  host  of  heaven  can  not  be  numbered, 
neither  the  sand  of  the  sea  measured  :  so  will  I  multiply  the  seed 
of  David  my  servant,  and  the  Lev'tes  that  minister  unto  me.  More- 
over the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  Jeremiah,  saying,  Considerest 
thou  not  what  this  people  have  spoken,  saying.  The  two  families 
which  the  Lord  hath  chosen,  he  hath  even  cast  them  off?  thus  they 
have  despistd  my  people,  that  they  should  be  no  more  a  nation  be- 
fore them.  Thus  saith  the  Lord :  If  my  covenant  be  not  with  day 
and  night,  and  if  I  have  not  appointed  the  ordinances  of  heaven  and 


vs.    PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  Ut^ 

earth;  then  will  I  cast  away  the  seed  of  Jacob,  and  David  my  ser 
vant,  so  that  I  ^ill  not  take  any  of  liis  seed  to  be  rulers  over  the  seed 
of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob;  for  I  will  cause  their  captivity  tore- 
turn,  and  have  mercy  on  them. 

This  and  similar  passages,  especially  in  Jeremiah  ami 
Ezekiel,  in  which  the  restoration  of  the  Davidian  dynasty 
after  the  captivity  is  prophesied,  have  become  favorites  with 
Christological  expounders  of  Scriptures.  They  forget  that 
in  none  of  these  passages  is  it  stated  that  the  son  or  scion  of 
David  will  save  the  nation,  or  any  individual ;  hence  if  these 
prophecies  are  Messianic  they  certainly  do  not  point  to  the 
Christian  Messiah  who  is  announced  as  the  savior  of  every- 
body. In  all  those  passages,  as  in  the  above,  the  son  or 
scion  of  David  becomes  great  and  renowned  only  with  Judah 
and  Israel,  and  after  they  are  restored  and  re-established, 
not  by  him,  but  he  after  them — there  can  be  no  throne 
without  a  people — which  could  not  possibly  refer  to  the  son 
of  Mary,  who  appeared  upon  the  stage  when  Judah  and  Is- 
rael had  ceased  to  be  an  independent  people  and  were  never 
again  restored  and  re-established.  On  the  other  hand  it  is 
a  well-known  fact  that  after  the  return  from  Babylon  the 
Davidian  dynasty  was  restored  in  the  person  of  Zerubabel 
and  his  descendants  prior  to  Nehemiah,  and  Zerubabel  was 
a  righteous  and  eminent  ruler  in  Israel,  hence  those  prophe- 
cies concerning  the  Davidian  scion  were  fulfilled.  The 
Davidian  dynasty,  as  said  by  David  himself  (1  Kings  ii. 
2-4  and  elsewhere)  was  not  given  the  perpetual  heriditary 
right,  it  was  granted  on  condition,  which  many  a  Davidian 
prince  violated  and  forfeited  the  throne,  till  at  last  they  lost 
it  altogether.  That  was  also  the  cas9  with  the  descendants 
of  Zerubabel,  as  is  evident  from  the  Book  of  Nehemiah, 
their  claim  was  forfeited,  and  they  were  replaced  by  Nehe- 
miah, by  the  high-priests  then,  and  at  last  by  the  Herodians. 
They  are  never  mentioned  again  till  after  the  Chiistian  era, 
simply  because  nobody  in  Palestine  believed  that  those 
prophecies  extended  beyond  Zerubabel  and  his  descendants 
up  to  Nehemiah. 

In  the  passage  before  us  this  is  evident  enough.     It  says 
first  (verses  14  to  16)  that  the  good  words  spoken  concern- 


100  A   DEFENSE   OF   JUDAISM 

ing  the  house  of  Israel  and  the  house  of  Judah  shall  be  ful- 
filled, the  nation  v.-ill  be  restored.  Then  God  will  raise  to 
David  a  sprout  of  righteousness  (after  the  restoration)  and 
he  will  do  justice  and  righteousness  in  the  land  (as  Zeru- 
babel  actually  did).  Then  Judah  will  flourish  or  '"  be  saveil,*' 
and  Jerusalem  will  dwell  in  safety  (under  the  reign  of  that 
ruler);  and  it  will  be  called,  viz  :  Jerusalem,  God  is  our 
justice,  or  "God  is  just  to  us."  * 

Then  in  verses  17  and  18  Jeremiah  reiterates  that  both 
the  Davidian  dynasty  and  the  Levitical  priesthood  should 
be  restored  with  the  nation,  which  many  who  believed  in  the 
reconstruction  of  the  nation  did  not  consider  ne:essary,  to 
restore  the  Davidian  dynasty  or  the  Levitical  priesthood 
and  the  sacrifices.  The  prophet  maintained  all  that  must  be 
simultaneously  restored.  Hence  he  certainly  did  not  think 
of  the  Christian  Mejsiah,  with  whom  the  sacrifices  and  the 
Levitical  priesthood  certainly  were  not  restored  ;  both,  ac- 
cording to  Christology,  were  forever  abolished  by  him. 

Then  inverses  19  to  22  he  merely  amplifies  the  aforesaid 
with  an  exaggerating  figure  of  speech,  perhaps  in  response 
to  those  who  knew  how  sma'l  the  number  of  the  princes  of 
the  Davidian  blood  and  the  Levites  then  were;  but  always 
the  two,  David  and  the  Levitical  priesthood  with  their  sacer- 
dotal functions  in  close  connection. 

Then  inverses  23-26  he  argues  against  those  who  believed 
that  no  national  restoration  would  folio "v,  closing  up  the 
whole  passage  with  the  characteristic  expression  that  Da- 


*  Here  may  be  noticed  a  peculiar  error  of  some  Christian  secta- 
rians. This  expression  Jehovah  Tzidkenu,  occurs  twice  in  Jeremiah 
in  the  same  conne  :tion.  Jeremiah  xxiii  6.  The  Davidian  to  exe- 
cute justi  e  and  rigliteousness  in  the  land  is  called  Jehjvah  Tzidkenu, 
'  And  that  is  the  name  which  they  will  call  him  "  Jeremiah  xxxiii. 
speaking  of  Judah  and  last  of  Jerusalem,  which  shall  dwell  in  safety, 
it  is  said  :  ' '  They  will  call  her  Jehovah  Tzidkenu.  viz,  Jerusalem  which 
word  is  feminine  in  Hebrew,  it  having  no  neuter  gender  This  Je- 
hovah Tzidkenu  being  suppo  ed  to  mean  Jesus— we  could  not  tell 
why — to  whom  the  prophet  refers  once  as  him  and  then  as  her,  and 
Jesus  came  on  earth  as  a  man  the  first  time,  he  must  come  the  sec- 
ond time  as  a  wo  Tan.  That  is  one  of  those  pieces  of  theology 
based  absolutely  upon  ignorance  of  the  Hebrew  language. 


vs.    PROSELYTIZING    CHRISTIANITY.  101 

vidians  (in  the  plural  number,  not  one  Jesus)  will  rule 
asain  over  the  seed  of  Abraham  Isaac  and  Jacob  (not  over 
hU  nations  of  the  world),  "When  (not  if  or  for)  I  will  bring 
back  their  captives  and  show  them  mercy.'' 

There  is  no  trace  in  the  whole  passage  of  any  Messiah  to 
oome  six  hundred  years  later,  or  of  any  savior  from  the 
house  of  David,  political  or  theological,  or  any  perion  to  die 
at  all  a  natural  or  unnatural  death  as  a  vicarious  atonement. 
Tiiis  is  the  case  with  all  similar  passages  in  Jeremiah  and 
Ez:'kiel.  They  prophesied  th»3  restoration  under  the  old  re- 
g  lilt',  with  the  Levitical  priesthood,  the  sacrifices  and  a  Da- 
vidian  ruler,  and  never  go  beyond  this,  except  where  they 
expound  the  prophecies  of  Moses,  viz. :  the  indestructibility 
of  the  Hebrew  people  and  the  covenant  which  includes  the 
final  triumph  of  truth,  justice,  freedom  and  humanism  for 
the  whole  family  of  man,  without  the  slightest  allusion  to 
any  person  or  individual  to  produce  that  indestructibility  or 
this  triumph. 

JEREMIAH  XXXI.  31  E    S. 

"  Behold  days  come,  saith  Jehovah,  and  I  make  (or  cut) 
a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of  Israel  and  with  the  house 
of  Judah;  not  like  unto  the  covenant  which  I  have  made 
with  their  fathers  in  the  day  when  I  took  them  by  their 
hand  to  bring  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  when  they  frus- 
trated my  covenant  and  I  lorded  over  them  (or  lovingly  em- 
braced them),  saith  Jehovah." 

This  is  the  prophecy,  say  the  Christian  expounders,  clearly 
foretelling  the  advent  of  Christianity,  which  is  called  the  new 
coven  int;  but  they  never  tell  that  Christianity  was  called 
the  new  covenant,  because  these  two  words  (Berith  Chadn- 
shah)  were  conveniently  found  in  a  prophesv  of  Jeremiah 
concerning  the  restoration  of  Israel  after  the  Babylonian 
oriptivity,  when  in  fact  it  predicts  rathe*  the  catatosi-?  of 
Cliristology  than  the  genesis  of  Christianity,  according  to 
Vf^rse  34. 

Such  misinterpretation  of  Scriptures  would  appear  par- 
donable with  popular  preachers,  for  whom  the  texts  are 
mere  pretexts,  to  be  used  to  advantage  without  reference  to 


102  A    DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

the  preceding  and  succeeding  statements.  It  appears  un-- 
pardonable,  however,  if  men  of  learning  and  critical  sense  ad  - 
vance  impossibilities  as  the  meaning  of  Scriptures,  simply 
because  it  was  imposed  upon  their  minds  that  Christianity  is 
called  a  new  covenant.  They  must  know  that  the  section 
of  the  book  of  Jeremiah  from  chapter  xxx.  to  the  end  of 
chapter  xxxi.  is  one  speech  which  the  prophet  wrote  in  a  book 
by  special  command  of  God.  Having  prophesied  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  the  dissolution  of  the  commonwealth,  and 
the  subsequent  captivity,  he  prophesies  now  the  restoration 
of  the  people,  viz. :  Israel  and  Judah  (xxx.  2),  the  indestruc- 
tibility of  the  Hebrew  people  (verses  10, 11),  the  rebuilding 
of  the  city  of  Jerusalem  and  its  temple  (verse  18),  and  the 
state  of  happiness,  of  peace,  concord,  virtue  and  piety,  the 
flourishing  condition  to  ensue  after  that,  and  this  is  the 
very  sense  of  that  new  covenant ;  and  closes  the  whole 
speech  with  a  forcible  reiteration  of  the  indestructibility  of 
the  Hebrew  people  as  a  people,  and  the  rebuilding  of  Jeru- 
salem as  a  city.  The  whole  speech  is  one  solid  piece,  with 
this  purpose  in  the  prophet's  mind.  Nothing  foreign  to 
this  purpose  could  honestly  be  interpreted,  nothing  else 
can  rationally  be  discovered  in  it,  if  one  reads  the  speech  as 
a  unit.  Certainly  the  man  of  truth  can  not  state  now, 
'•  For  behold  days  come,  saith  Jehovah,  and  I  will  return 
with  the  captives  of  my  people  Israel  and  Judah,  saith  Je 
hovah,  and  I  will  bring  them  back  to  the  land  which  I  have 
given  to  Abraham,  and  they  shall  possess  it;"  then  add 
(xxxi.  22),  "And  you  shall  be  my  people  and  I  will  to  you 
be  God,"  and  closes  the  same  speech  with  the  solemn  assur- 
ance of  the  indestructibility  of  the  same  people,  and  the  city 
rebuilt ;  but  in  the  midst  of  that  very  speech  he  contradict? 
his  own  statements  by  prophesying  a  new  covenant  to 
supercede  the  old,  and  make  an  end  of  that  very  people, 
city,  temple,  Thorah,  and  all  institutions  connected  there- 
with, all  replaced  by  Christianity.  No  honest  inquirer  can 
charge  a  prophet  with  such  contradiction,  although  those 
learned  gentlemen  in  consequence  of  their  subjective  knowl- 
edge fail  to   see   that  they  discover  Christianity  in  the- 


V8.    PROSELYTJZING   CHRISTIANITY.  103 

prophet's  "  new  covenant,"  because  the  two  terms  are  iden- 
tical in  their  minds. 

Taki-ng  the  passage  in  question  out  of  its  connection  it 
remains  no  less  evident  that  the  Berith  chadashah  can  have 
no  relation  to  Christianity.  The  passage  begins  with  the 
express  words  that  God  will  make  a  covenant  "  with  the 
house  of  Israel  and  the  house  of  Judah,"  the  Hebrew  peo- 
ple as  it  then  was  and  never  again  thereafter.  Not  with  the 
sons  of  Israel,  with  some  of  Israel,  not  with  any  persons 
outside  of  Israel,  but  with  the  people  comprised  in  the 
house  of  Israel  and  the  house  of  Judah,  the  prophet  says, 
this  new  covenant  should  be  made.  These  express  terms 
can  not  be  stretched  or  spiritualized  to  refer  to  any  state 
or  persons  besides  the  Hebrew  people,  as  it  then  was.  If 
we  even  take  for  granted  that  Christianity  at  its  inception 
was  a  new  covenant,  it  was  certainly  not  the  one  an- 
nounced by  Jeremiah,  for  it  was  not  made  with  the  house 
of  Israel  and  the  house  of  Judah.  They  never  recognized 
the  Chrittian  Messiah  nor  the  religion  supposed  to  have 
been  advanced  by  him,  nor  the  redemption  ascribed  to 
him,  hence  that  new  covenant  was  never  made  or  con- 
summated with  the  Hebrew  people,  and  the  prophet's 
prediction  never  came  to  pass,  or  it  was  fulfilled  in  the 
second  Hebrew  Commonwealth,  or  it  is  to  be  fulfilled  here- 
after ;  in  the  Christian  dispensation  it  certainly  was  not 
fulfilled. 

Investigate  the  nature  of  the  new  covenant  as  described 
by  the  prophet,  and  you  must  arrive  at  the  same  result.  It 
should  not  be  like  the  covenant  which  God  made  with  their 
fathers  "  in  the  day  when  I  took  them  by  their  hands  to 
BRING  THEM  OUT  of  the  land  of  Egypt,"  which  they  frus- 
trated, and  God  lorded  over  them  (verse  32).  Mark  the  ex- 
pression Lehoziom,  the  old  covenant  which  is  referred  to  is 
one  that  was  made  with  the  fathers  and  not  with  the  peo- 
ple, before  they  came  out  of  Egypt,  and  with  the  end  in 
view  to  bring  them  out  of  that  land.  It  is  not  the  covenant 
at  Horeb  to  which  Jeremiah  refers,  for  this  was  made  with 
the  people  and  not  merely  with  the  fathers,  after  they  had 
left  Egypt,  and  not  before  as  the  means  of  bringing  them 


104  A    DEFKNSK    OF    JUDAISM 

oiit.  He  must  have  referred  to  the  covenant  which  was  to  be 
ji:irtially  fulfilled  and  renewed  by  the  exode  from  Egypt, 
'i'his  could  only  be  the  covenant  recorded  in  Genesis  xv.,  in 
which  the  Egyptian  bondage  and  redemption  are  announced 
(verses  13-16),  the  land  of  Canaan  is  promised  to  Abraham 
(verse  7),  and  God  covenants  with  him  that  this  land 
should  be  given  to  his  descendants  (verses  lS-21).  This 
covenant  is  referred  to  again  in  unmistakable  terms  and 
repeatedly,  "  In  the  day  when  I  (God)  took  them  by  their 
hands  to  bring  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,"  and  Moses 
was  sent  to  accomplish  it,  in  Exodus  ill.  6-10,  17;  vi.  2-8; 
xiii.  5.  It  embraces  no  more  thaa  Israel's  title  to  possess 
the  land  of  Canaan,  and  is  again  referred  to  by  Moses 
(Leviticus  xxvi.  42)  as  a  special  covenant  concerning  the 
land.  This  covenant  was  frustrated,  the  right  of  possessing 
the  land  was  forfeited,  as  Jeremiah  himself  states  in  chap- 
ter xi.  3-10,  in  the  same  words  (verse  10)  as  he  does  in 
xxxi.  32,  which  is  certainly  not  accidental.  At  the  same 
time,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel  and  Isaiah  speak  not  only  of  the 
eternity  of  the  covenant  and  the  people,  but  also  of  pos- 
sessing again  the  very  land  of  promise,  although  the  right 
to  possess  it  was  forfeited.  Therefore  Jeremiah  announces 
a  new  covenant,  which  means  no  more  and  no  less  than  a 
renewal  of  the  title  to  the  land,  a  new  grant  by  the  Al- 
mighty to  the  sinful  people.  All  this  has  certainly  nothing 
to  do  with  Christianity  or  any  other  religion,  the  Christian 
or  any  other  Messiah. 

The  condition  of  the  old  covenant  was  the  worship  of 
the  one,  only  and  true  God ;  it  was  frustrated  by  idolatry 
and  polytheism.  So  Moses  said,  and  the  prophets  repeat 
it.  The  question  then  was,  if  this  covenant  be  renewed, 
the  land  of  promise  be  reoccupied,  will  it  not  be  frustrated 
again  by  the  same  causes?  Jeremiah  answers  no,  it  will 
not,  "I  have  given  my  law  in  their  mids*.'  which  can  not 
fail  to  enlighten  them  ;  they  have  gone  astray,  but  by  their 
downfall,  national  disasters,  captivity,  and  consequent 
raiser}',  they  will  be  purified,  take  the  law  to  their  heart, 
''  and  I  will  write  it  upon  their  heart,  and  I  shall  be  to  them 
God  and  they  shall  be  to  me  the  people."     So  said  Moses, 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHRl!?TIAMTY.  105 

and  the  prophets  repeated  it ;  so  it  actually  came  to  pass, 
even  literally  so.  From  and  after  their  return  from  the 
Babylonian  captivity  there  was  no  more  idolatry,  no  poly- 
theism, none  from  Zerubabel  to  this  day  in  Israel.  With 
the  Christian  covenant,  however,  these  aberrations  of  the 
mind  did  not  only  not  cease,  but  went  from  bad  to  worse, 
as  darkness  and  superstition  from  century  to  century  pro- 
gressed, so  that  the  Protestants  still  call  Catholicism  a 
huge  paganism,  the  Unitarian  considers  the  trinitarian  a 
heathen,  and  all  of  them  denounce  the  Greek  church  as  a 
conglomeration  of  sin  and  aberration.  As  the  cause  of 
this  change  and  conversion  from  the  state  of  idolatry, 
polytheism  and  immorality  to  that  of  pure  religion  and 
morality,  the  prophet  states,  "  And  they  will  no  more 
teach  t  ne  his  neighbor  and  a  man  his  brother,  Know  ye 
Jehovah ;  for  all  will  know  me,  even  from  their  small  to 
their  great  ones,  saith  Jehovah,"  as  all  true  religion  and 
morality  depend  on  the  correct  knowledge  of  the  Supreme 
Being;  all  religious  beliefs  and  moral  principles  are  rays 
from  this  central  sun,  man's  knowledge  of  God.  Also  this 
prophecy  was  literally  fulfilled  in  the  Hebrews'  second 
commonwealth,  the  knowledge  of  the  tne,  only  and  true 
God  was  universal  in  Israel,  while  darkness  and  thick 
clouds  covered  the  nations  from  one  end  of  the  earth  to 
the  other.  On  Mt.  Moriah  was  the  only  temple  in  the 
world  where  the  one,  only  and  true  God  was  worshiped 
and  proclaimed.  This  was  never  the  case  in  Christianity, 
and  is  but  exceptionally  the  case  now.  A  forest  of  saints  of 
both  sexes,  images,  pictures,  crucifixes,  a  mother,  son  and 
assistant  of  God,  Satan,  demons  and  hell-fire  obstructed 
the  vision,  and  Christology  does  the  same  work  yet.  So 
.Jeremiah  explains  his  own  words  in  the  xxxii.  chapter, 
verses  38-41. 

The  cause,  however,  of  this  change  from  pagan  corrup- 
tion to  the  monotheistic  religiousness  and  morality,  the 
prophet  continues,  is  "  for  I  will  forgive  their  iniquity  and 
iheir  sinfulness  will  I  not  remember  again."  Steeped  in 
sensuality,  wealth,  sin  and  shame  in  their  own  countri', 
thev  could  not  see  truth  and  righteousness  any  longer,  and 


106  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM. 

SO  their  sight  was  obscured  and  their  mind  bewildered 
they  could  behold  and  know  God  no  more.  Captivity  and 
misery,  calamity  and  grief  far  away  from  home  will  rouse 
them  from  their  sensual  dream  life  and  purify  them,  their 
sins  will  be  expiated,  their  iniquity  will  be  burned  out  with 
the  fire  of  repentance,  and  they  will  again  behold  the  glory 
of  God,  the  majesty  of  truth  and  righteousness.  The  captiv- 
ity will  be  the  furnace  of  purification.  And  so  it  was,  as 
Moses  predicted,  the  prophets,  especially  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel 
and  Deutero-Isaiah,  repeated,  and  the  next  following  chap- 
ters of  history  confirmed.  This,  again,  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  Christianity,  which  acknowledges  no  forgiveness 
of  sin,  no  pardon  of  iniquity,  no  expiation  of  transgression 
without  the  vicarious  atonement  through  the  blood  of  the 
son.  The  new  covenant  of  Jeremiah's  prediction  took 
effect  in  Israel  with  Zerubabel  and  the  returning  captives, 
and  was  never  again  frustrated.  Israel  remained  faithful 
to  his  God,  as  Jeremiah  announces  in  conclusion  of  that 
divine  message  (xxxi.  35-37). 

There  is  no  Christology  either  in  Moses  or  Isaiah,  none 
in  Jeremiah,  certainly  none  in  Ezekiel,  who  in  the  main,  in 
principle  and  doctrine,  was  the  counterpart  of  the  former 
We  need  but  consult  one  more  book,  the  Psalms,  to  prove 
that  the  New  Testament  is  the  fulfillment  and  continuation 
of  the  old,  by  the  grace  of  the  church  and  the  bookbinder. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


NO  CHRISTOLOGY   IN  PSALMP. 


AMONG  all  the  prayers,  hymns,  adorations,  anthems  and 
doxologies  written  by  poets,  none  can  equal  the  Psalms 
of  David,  none  have  found  such  universal  acknowledgment 
and  admiration,  none  have  brought  to  the  uncounted  mil- 
lions of  human  beings  so  much  consolation,  comfort,  hope, 
faith  and  santification.  Every  line  in  those  one  hundred 
and  fifty  chapters  breathes  stirring  religious  inspiration  in 
the  simplest,  often  child-like  language  of  nature,  rising  on 
the  pinions  of  nameless  piety  to  the  very  pinnacle  of  poeti- 
cal affluence,  now  soaring  aloft  with  the  strains  of  a  heavenly 
lyre  to  the  very  throne  of  the  ineflfable  Deity,  then  bringing 
<lown  Eternal  Mercy  so  close,  so  near  to  the  petitioner,  that 
he  feels  the  ecstasy  of  his  loving  kindness,  sees  and  grasps 
his  hand  outstretched  to  rescue,  to  save  him,  feels  and  sees 
Ills  nearness.  Those  Psalms  form  the  substance  of  all  exist- 
ing devotional  literature  among  civilized  nations,  they  have 
furnished  the  modern  language  with  their  main  phraseology, 
and  are  the  fountain  of  consolation  to  millions  of  aching 
hearts. 

This  collection  of  pious  effusions  certainly  deserves  par- 
ticular a  Mention.  We  can  learn  from  it  the  natural  language 
of  the  suul  under  the  most  varied  states  of  the  mind,  from 
shouting  joy  to  dumfounded  grief  and  sorrow.  We  can  also 
learn  from  it  the  religious  and  theological  sentiments  and 
doctrines  as  they  lived  and  coursed  in  the  people's  hearts 
and  souls  during  all  the  centuries  from  David  to  the  Macca- 
bean  prince  Simon,  a  period  of  nine  hundred  years,  free  of 
xiU  dogmatic  artifice,  political  bias  and  philosophical  ab- 
straction, the  religion  and  theology  of  the  people  in  that  very 

people's  language. 

•  (107) 


108  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAIjJ.M 

The  lnu:^t  ivmarkable  points,  perhaps,  in  this  connection 
are — 

1.  The  stern  and  uncompromising  monotheism  through- 
out the  book.  It  is  the  one,  only  and  true  God  who  is  wor- 
shiped, no  angel,  no  saint,  no  mediator,  no  savior,  no  hypos- 
tasis, nothing  besides  God  himself.  Heaven  and  earth,with 
all  that  fills  them,  the  elements  and  the  intelligences,  all 
strains  of  music  and  all  phantoms  of  poetry  are  invoked, 
personified  and  apostrophized  to  worship,  adore  and  glorify 
the  majesty  on  high,  the  maker,  ruler  and  preserver  of  the 
universe,  but  to  none  of  them  any  homage  is  paid,  the  Great 
I  Am  is  all  in  all. 

2.  The  nearness  of  God  to  man  and  man  to  God,  the  most 
intimate  relation  between  the  Father  and  his  children  char- 
acterizes the  entire  book.  Man  appears  in  the  brightest 
sunlight  of  the  Deity,  and  God  is  manifested  with  the  most 
tender  affections  of  the  noblest  humanity. 

3.  The  lofty  position  ascribed  in  the  dispensations  of 
Providence  to  virtue,  righteousness,  purity  and  holiness  in 
God  and  man,  as  the  very  points  in  which  they  meet,  and 
which  are  the  scales  to  reach  the  summuin  bonum. 

It  is  not  a  religion,  it  is  the  religion,  not  a  theology,  but 
THE  theology,  which  attain  most  adequate  expression  in 
those  Psalms. 

And  yet  the  advocates  of  Christology  want  to  make  us  be- 
lieve that  the  peculiar  doctrines  or  dogmas  of  that  faith  are 
outlined,  foreshadowed  or  prophesied  in  the  Psalms,  in  which 
there  is  not  the  slightest  attempt  at  predicting  or  foretelling 
any  event— the  praying  man,  the  God-adoring  poet,  never 
prophesies — and  not  an  iota  of  an  idea  contrary  to  absolute 
monotheism  is  discernible  anywhere  in  the  whole  book.  It 
seems  to  be  even  more  illegitimate  and  arbitray  to  discover 
Christology  in  the  Psalms  than  in  Moses  and  Isaiah,  the 
fallacy  of  which  we  have  exposed;  because  popular  prayers 
and  hymns  naturally  contain  no  mysteries  unknown  to  or 
not  understood  by  every  petitioner  or  worshiper ;  and  it  is 
certainly  absurd  to  presume  that  the  ancient  Hebrews  prayed 
for  a  thousand  years  prayers,  the  import  of  which  they  did 
not  understand. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING    CHUISTIAMTY.  109 

The  most  renowned  Christian  expounders  of  Psalms  have 
given  up  the  idea  of  Messianic  prophecies  in  the  Psahns. 
Not  so  the  conversion  agent ;  lie  must  cling  to  his  inveterate 
errors,  he  has  no  other  stock  in  trade.  He  goes  on  telling 
the  same  old  story,  however  often  refuted,  and  it  takes 
well  with  church  members,  who  never  could  read  a  line  of 
Hebrew,  because  their  minds  are  saturated  with  the  Christ- 
ological  stories  and  dogmas  ;  consequently  the  missionary's 
expositions  suit  their  prejudices  with  which  they  come  to  the 
Bible,  and  they  do  exactly  as  he  does.  That  is  all  right  as  far 
as  it  goes.  But  when  they  come  with  those  old  stories  to 
the  unprejudiced  Hebrew,  who  can  examine  Scripture  in  the 
original,  it  becomes  all  wrong.  In  proof  thereof  we  examine 
some  of  those  Psalms. 

rSAl.M  II 

Right  in  the  very  beginning  of  the  book,  in  the  sec- 
ond chapter,  a  son  of  God  is  mentioned  twice,  who  is  also 
called  King,  and  Messiah.  The  English  version  of  it  reads 
thus  : 

**  Wherefore  do  nations  rage,  and  people  meditate  a  vain 
thing?  The  kings  of  the  earth  raise  themselves  up,  and 
rulers  take  counsel  together,  against  the  Lord  and  his 
anointed  :  Let  us  break  asunder  their  bands,  and  cast  away 
from  us  their  cords.  He  who  dwelleth  in  the  heavens  will 
laugh  :  the  Lord  will  hold  them  in  d.rision  Then  will  he 
speak  unto  them  in  anger,  and  in  his  displeasure  will  he  ter- 
rify them  ( Saying,)  Yet  have  I  appointed  my  king  upon 
Zion  my  holy  mount.  I  will  announce  the  decree,  the  Lord 
hath  said  unto  me  :  My  son  art  thou  :  I  have  indeed  this 
day  begotten  thee.  Ask  it  of  me,  and  I  will  give  the  nations 
as  an  inheritance,  and  for  thy  possession  the  uttermost 
ends  of  the  earth.  Thou  shalt  break  them  with  a  rod  of 
iron  ;  like  a  potter's  vessel  shalt  thou  dash  them  in  pieces. 
And  now,  O  ye  kings  be  wise  :  take  warning  ye  judges  of  the 
earth.  Serve  the  Lord  with  fear,  and  rejoice  with  trembling. 
Do  homage  to  the  son,  lest  he  be  angry  and  ye  be  lost  on  the 
way ;  for  his  wrath  is  so  speedily  kindled.  Happy  are  all 
they  who  put  their  trust  in  him." 


110  A  DEFENSE  OF  JIDAISM 

In  this  translation  it  looks  almost  like  a  prophecy  con- 
cerning a  king,  Messiah  and  son  of  God,  which  it  will  be 
shown  in  a  moment  it  is  not.  If  it  were  a  prophecy  it 
could  not  refer  to  the  Christian  Messiah.  This  "son  of 
God  "  does  not  amount  to  much  as  a  proof  in  favor  of  any 
person,  as  the  whole  of  Israel  was  called  by  God  "my  first- 
born son,"  which  Moses  and  Hosea  repeated. 

The  whole  tone  of  the  psalm  is  too  martial,  too  much  re- 
bellion and  conspiracy-like,  to  fit  to  a  prince  of  peace.  And 
then  the  gentle  son  of  man  to  break  the  nations  with  a 
rod  of  iron  and  dash  them  to  pieces  like  a  potter's  vessel ; 
who  can  find  in  that  tone  of  wild  uproar  and  that  furious 
punishment  following  any  prediction  of  the  Messiah  lamb- 
kin? We  could  easier  discover  in  this  chapter  John  Hyr- 
can,  Alexander  Jannai,  Mohammed,  Charlemagne,  Atilla  or 
Cromwell,  than  the  son  of  Mary.  Besides  it  nmst  be  ad- 
mitted that  nothing  of  the  kind  occurred  in  the  life  of  the 
Christian  Messiah.  No  heathens  raged  and  no  people  im- 
agined vain  things.  No  kings  set  themselves  up  and  no 
rulers  conspired  against  God  and  his  Messiah.  No  bands 
-iind  no  cords  were  either  put  on  or  broken  b\'  anybody,  and 
no  nation  was  broken  with  any  sort  of  a  rod  and  none 
dashed  in  pieces;  nothing  of  the  kind  happened.  It  takes 
&  goodly  stretch  of  the  imagination  to  see  in  this  chapter  a 
prediction  concerning  the  Christian  Messiah. 

This  psalm,  however,  read  in  the  light  of  grammar,  is 
no  prophecy,  no  prediction  at  all ;  it  is  a  poem  on  a  lately 
transpired  event,  like  Psalm  i.,  written  by  some  anonymous 
poet,  who  does  not  maintain  at  all  to  be  either  a  prophet  or 
the  son  of  a  prophet. 

The  psalm  begins  thus  :  Lamoh  ragueshu  Goyim,  the  verb 
strictly  in  the  past  tense,  which,  to  be  honest,  must  be 
translated,  "  Why  did  the  Gentiles  rage?"  then,  of  course, 
all  the  verbs  following  the  first,  describing  the  actions  con- 
nected with  it  in  chronological  order  are  and  must  be  in 
the  future  tense  But  as  soon  as  that  chain  of  actions  is 
closed,  and  a  new  one  begins  in  verses  5  and  6,  there  is 
again  the  past  tense,  Fa'awt  nasachti  Malki,  "  I  did  anoint 


vs.    PROSELYTIZlXti    CIIKISTIANITY.  Ill 

my  king  ""*  (or  set  lip),  to  follow  again  by  the  future  tense 
or  the  imperative  mode,  for  the  same  reason  as  above.  It  is 
a  past  event  on  which  the  poet  dwells,  and  not  a  prediction 
at  all. 

Now  lot  us  see  to  what  person  and  event  the  poet  may 
refer 

The  event  is  clearly  expressed  to  have  been  a  rebellion 
among  Gentiles,  not  in  Israel,  as  the  plural  of  Goyim  and 
Leummim  (verse  1)  nowhere  in  the  Bible  refers  to  Israel. 
Those  Gentiles  consist  of  a  number  of  petty  kingdoms,  as 
their  Melachivi  kings  in  verse  2  shows,  and  other  national- 
ities or  tribes  led  by  chiefs  {Rozcnim  ).  all  of  whom  conspired, 
formed  a  compact  combination  nosedu  yachar  (from  yasad, 
to  establish  firmly)  to  effect  a  revolution  The  conspiracy 
is  overthrown,  the  rebellion  is  quelled,  as  said  in  verse  9, 
and  the  heads  thereof  are  advised  to  return  to  their  legiti- 
mate allegiance  (verses  10,  11)  or  the  deserved  punishment 
might  overreach  them  (verse  11).  Anybody  least  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  the  past  must  know  that  no 
.such  event  transpired  in  the  time  of  the  Christian  Messiah, 
nor  at  any  time  after  his  death,  that  Gentiles  conspired,  rose 
in  rebellion  against  Israel  and  were  totally  vanquished. 

To  come  nearer  to  the  event,  we  must  investigate  against 
whom  those  Gentiles  rebelled.  In  verse  2  it  is  stated  they  re- 
belled against  Jehovah  and  his  Messiah,  whose  bands  they 
want  to  break  asunder  and  whose  cords  they  mean  to  cast 
away.  So  they  are  admonished  at  the  end  to  return  to  their 
allegiance  to  Jehovah  and  his  Messiah  or  son.  ^Vho  was  that 
Messiah  in  Israel  against  whom  those  Gentiles  rebelled  be- 
sides the  anointed  high  priest?  Only  one  person  in  Israel  was 
called  Messiah,  or  the  Anointed,  and  that  was  the  King  of 
all  Israel,  Saul,  David  and  Solomon,  later  on  King  Josiah, 
who  had  again  assumed  the  scepter  over  all  Israel ;  and  still 
later  King  Cyrus  was  called  Messiah,  although  he  was  a 
heathen,  because  all    Israel  was  under  his  scepter.     King 


*  The  beginning  of  verse  5  is  falsely  translated  in  the  future 
tense;  it  should  be,  "  Then  did  he  speak  as  rr^  ?X  (Exodus  xvi.; 
Numbers  xxi  17);  "',:•-*  TN  (Joshua  xii.  2);  ";r  *N  (1  Kings  xi.  7); 
also  1  Kings  viii.  1,  and  elsewhere. 


112  A    J)EKKN8E    OF    JIDAISM 

Hezekiah  did  attempt,  as  the  Talmud-  says,  to  become  a 
Messiah,  but  lie  did  not  reach  it/--  The  Messiah  of  the  Lord 
must  have  been  Saul,  David,  Solomon  or  Josiah.  Let  us 
see  whether  we  can  not  pick  out  the  right  man. 

The  Messiah  of  Psalm  ii.  must  have  been  one  who  was 
anointed  upon  Zion,  for  nasach  (verse  6)  means  primarily 
to  anoint,  and  is  synonymous  with  mashach.  That  was  cer- 
tainly not  the  Christian  Messiah,  who  was  never  anointed, 
nor  can  anybody  tell  that  he  ever  was  on  Mount  Zion  at  all. 
It  was  not  Saul,  he  never  reigned  on  Mount  Zion,  nor  was  it 
David,  ior  he  was  not  anointed  on  Mount  Zion.  This  limits 
the  matter  to  Solomon  and  Josiah.  Let  us  see  whether  we 
can  select  the  right  man  from  the  two  without  casting  lots. 

The  particular  Messiah  of  Psalm  ii.,  according  to  verse 
7,  must  be  he  concerning  whom  God  said,  ''  Thou  art  my 
son,  this  day  have  I  begotten  thee ;  "  and  all  that  in  the 
past  tense  (amw  and  yelacW-icha),  hence  it  refers  not  to  the 
Christian  Messiah,  as  it  must  have  been  said  before  the 
psalm  was  written.  Besides  that,  even  according  to  Chris- 
tian authority,  it  is  not  God ;  it  is  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
form  of  a  dove,  cooing  something  which  was  understood  to 
that  efifect,  about  which  the  Synoptics  considerably  dis- 
agree. It  was  not  Josiah,  of  whom  it  is  reported  nowhere 
that  God  called  him  his  son.  Solomon  is  the  only  person 
of  whom  we  are  informed  in  Scriptures  that  God  called  him 
his  son. 

The  Prophet  Nathan  brings  to  David  the  divine  message 
(2  Samuel  vii.  4-17;  1  Chronicles  xvii.)  that  he  should 
build  no  house  to  the  Lord,  but  his  son  and  successor 
should  do  so ;  and  concerning  this  son  and  temple  builder 
the  prophet  in  the  name  of  God  announces  Ani  eheyeh  lo 
I'ab,  vehu  yiheyeh  lee  Vhen:  "  I  will  be  to  him  (like)  a  father, 
and  he  shall  be  to  me  (like)  a  son"  (1  Chronicles  xvii. 
13,  and  2  Samuel  vii.  14).  Besides  Israel,  whom  God 
calls  "  my  first-born  son  "  (Exodus  iv.  22),  to  which  refers 

*  Psalm  Ixxxix.  waa  written  on  the  death  of  King  Josiah,  in  he 
battle  of  Megido,  and  on  the  humiliating  sequences.  There  the 
Messiah  reallv  was  slain. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING  CHRISTIANITY.  11:5 

Deuteronomy  xiv.  1,  "  Ye  are  sons  of  tlie  Lord  your  God," 
and  Hosea  xi.,  "  For  Israel  was  a  lad,  and  from  Egypt  have 
I  called  my  son,"  no  one  was  called  a  son  of  God  except  Sol- 
omon. To  him,  then,  and  to  him  only,  could  the  poet  refer 
when  he  let  him  exclaim,  "  Jehovah  said  to  (or  concerning) 
me,  thou  art  my  son."  This  certainly  was  a  close  court 
secret,  of  which,  besides  Nathan  and  David,  none  had  any 
knowledge,  or  else  David's  son,  Adoniah,  would  not  have 
himself  proclaimed  David's  successor,  nor  would  Joab  and 
f]byathar  have  supported  him  (1  Kings  i.  5-7).  Therefore, 
wo  suspect  Nathan  to  have  been  the  author  of  Psalms  i.,  ii, 
and  Ixxii. 

This  rebellion  must  have  occurred  when  Solomon  mounted 
the  throne,  or  else  it  could  not  be  maintained  that  God  said 
of  him,  "  To-day  have  I  begotten  thee,"  which  again  could 
not  refer  to  the  Christian  Messiah,  if  he  was  the  eternal 
Logos.  And  here,  again,  we  have  before  us  positive  Scriptu- 
ral proof,  in  1  Kings,  chapters  i.  and  ii.,  that  there  was  a  re- 
bellion in  Jerusalem  Avith  quite  a  bloody  catastrophe  when 
Solomon  was  anointed  successor  to  his  father.  Then  comes 
a  brief  mention  of  that  same  rebellion  at  the  same  time 
in  Syria  under  Resan  and  in  Edom  under  Adad  (1  Kings 
xii  14-25).  Here  are  the  "  kings  of  Syria,"  the  Malchei  Erez, 
not  kings  of  the  whole  earth,  and  the  Rozenim  princes,  chiefs 
and  judges  of  the  Gentiles  and  also  of  Jerusalem  that  re- 
belled against  Jehovah  and  his  Messiah.  David  was  King 
of  Syria  up  to  the  Euphrates  River,  of  Edom,  Ammon,  Moab 
and  Midian.  These  Gentiles  rebelled  against  Jehovah  and 
his  Messiah  when  Solomon  mounted  the  throne.  This  is  the 
event  to  which  Psalm  ii.  refers  Therefore  the  Syriac  bar 
comes  instead  of  the  Hebrew  hen.  The  Goyim  refers  to  the 
Syrian  principalities  and  the  Leumim  to  the  Edomitic  tribes, 
as  in  Genesis  xxv.  23,  which  the  poet  had  in  view. 

PSALM  ex. 

Another  example  of  misinterpretation  and  misapplica- 
tion of  Scriptures  for  dogmatic  purposes  is  the  Evangelical 
presentation  of  Psalm  ex.,  or  rather  the  first  verse  thereof, 
to  make  King  David  testify  to  the  plurality  in  the  Deity,  as 


114  A    DEFENSK    oF    JUDAISM 

though  there  were  two  Gods.  This  feat  was  accoraplishid 
by  a  simple  trick  not  uncommon  at  that  time  among  honii- 
letic  expounders  of  Scriptures,  known  in  the  Tahnud  as 
^^pn  "7N  "  Do  not  read  this  word  as  is  its  established  read- 
ing, but  read  it  so  as  I  propose,"  and  it  will  tell  that  whieli 
the  preacher  wants  it  to  say.  This  rule  ofexegesis  may  be 
unobjectionable,  if  it  is  applied  in  support  of  some  moral 
lesson  which  might  thus  be  better  impressed  on  the  minds 
of  the  hearers  by  being  seemin^y  based  upon  the  Scriptural 
testimony.  But  when  this  is  used  to  establish  a  fact  other- 
wise unknown,  it  is  not  only  illegitimate,  but  downright  mis- 
representation, and  this  is  evidently  the  ease  in  the  Evan- 
gelical presentation  of  the  first  verse  in  Psalm  ex. 

The  worst,  perhaps,  in  the  matter  is  that  the  Evangelists 
produce  that  cunning  misrepresentation  of  Scriptures  with- 
out feeling  that  hy  so  doing  they  bring  their  master  down  to 
the  level  of  such  preachers  whose  object  is  not  to  teach 
truth  but  to  produce  some  sham  testimony  in  support  of 
what  they  assert.  They  did  not  succeed  any  too  well  after 
all,  for  they  let  Jesus  quote  this  verse  in  one  place  to  prove 
that  he  was,  and  in  another  that  he  was  not,  a  son  of  David, 
hence  they  did  not  know  exactly  what  Jesus  said  or  that  he 
said  it  at  all ;  the  latter  is  most  likely. 

Let  us  see  how  that  psalm,  according  to  Evangelical  sug- 
gestion, reads  in  English — 

"  The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  sit  thou  at  my  right  hand, 
until  I  make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool.  The  Lord  shall 
send  the  rod  of  thy  strength  out  of  Zion  :  rule  thou  in  the 
midst  of  thine  enemies.  Thy  people  shall  be  willing  in  the 
day  of  thy  power,  in  the  beauties  of  holiness  from  the  womb 
of  the  morning  :  thou  hast  the  dew  of  thy  youth.  The  Lord 
hath  sworn,  and  will  not  repent.  Thou  art  a  priest  forever, 
after  the  order  of  Melchizedek.  The  Lord  at  thy  right  hand 
shall  strike  through  kings  in  the  day  of  his  wrath.  He  shall 
judge  among  the  heathen,  he  shall  fill  the  places  with  tlie 
dead  bodies  :  he  shall  Avound  the  heads  over  many  countries. 
He  shall  drink  of  the  brook  in  the  way ;  therefore  shall  lie 
lift  up  the  head." 

According  to  this  version,  it  is  to  be  understood  that  Da- 


Vf?.   I'ROSELVTIZI.Nc;    (  HHISTIANITV,  115 

vid  prophei^ied — which  he  never  did  or  maintained — that 
God  said  to  God,  "  Sit  at  my  right  hand,"  etc.  This  is  the 
very  place  where  the  trick  comes  in  At  that  time  the 
vowel  points  and  accents  were  not  written  with  the  Bible 
text.  The  ('onsonants  were  written  as  now  in  the  scrolls  of 
the  Law  in  tlie  synagogues,  the  vocalization  was  traditional. 
Therefore  that  al  thikra  trick  was  easy  enough,  especially 
when  the  Hebrew  was  no  longer  the  popular  tongue,  opposite 
people  not  so  very  well  versed  in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  and  more 
especially  by  the  evangelists,  who  had  not  the  original  but 
the  Greek  version,  or  a  Syriac  rendition  from  the  Greek  be- 
fore them 

It  so  happens  that  one  of  the  Hebrew  names  of  God  is  in 
consonants  identical  with  that  of  "  My  human  master  or 
lord,"  both  arc  A  D  N  Y ;  the  diiference  is  only  in  the 
vowels.  That  name  of  God  is  pronounced  "Adonci,"  and  that 
of  the  human  master  is  ''  Adonee,"  my  master.  In  the  origi- 
nal the  second  "  Lord  "  of  the  translation  reads  "Adonee," 
my  (human)  master,  or  as  in  England,  "  my  lord,"  which 
was  then  common  address  in  polite  language,  and  occurs  al- 
ready in  Genesis  (xxiii.  6,  11,  15;  xliv.  18)  several  times. 
That  verse  reads  literally,  "Jehovah  saith  (or  communicates) 
to  my  master,  sit  at  my  right  hand."  But  by  that  al  thikri 
trick  the  "Adonee  "  became  "Adonoi  "  in  the  Gospels,  and 
in  the  English  version,  "  the  Lord  saith  to  my  Lord,"  both 
with  a  capital  "  L  "  to  which  is  added  the  second  blunder  of 
making  of  the  second  Lord  "my  Lord,"  which  "Adonoi " 
never  signified ;  hence  either  the  capital  "  L  "  or  the  "  my  " 
is  false,  According  to  the  text  the  capital  "  L  "  is  a  decep- 
tion. Had  that  poet  had  the  idea  to  say  God  said  to  God^ 
he  would  certainly  have  said,  Jehovah  saith  to  Elohim,  to 
avoid  misunderstanding.  Besides  the  term  neum  is  no  verb, 
does  not  signify  said  or  saith,  it  signifies  "  a  communication 
of  JoKovah  to  my  master  or  lord,"  it  being  absurd  to  sup- 
pose that  God  communicates  something  to  himself,  then  the 
object  to  whom  the  comunication  is  directed  must  be  the 
Adonee,  God's  communication  to  Adonee.  As  this  ee  can 
not  be  used  in  Hebrew,  except  to  a  person  addressed  or  men- 
tioned before  in  the  same  connection,   consequently   thi* 


IIG  A    DKFKNSK    OF    .UDAI8M 

Adonce  must  refer  to  David,  the  first  word  in  the  psalm,  and 
the  Le-David  can  not  mean  "of  David,"  but  literally  ''to 
David ;"  somebody  brings  that  message  to  the  king  and  an- 
nounces it  to  him  personally ;  then  that  heading  of  Psalm 
ex.  reads  thus,  "  To  David,  a  psalm,  Jehovah's  communica- 
tion to  my  lord  (the  king),  sit  at  my  right  hand,"  etc.,  and 
tho  whole  dualism  of  Deity  vanishes. 

Perhaps  the  Hebrew  is  wrong,  and  the  Evangelical  read- 
ing is  right,  the  Massorites  falsified  that  word  or  any  similar 
dodge  which  converslonists  have  on  hand.  Unfortunately 
the  whole  chapter,  like  Psalm  ii.,  is  too  martial  and  cruel 
for  n  prince  of  peace.  *"  The  Lord  is  at  thy  right  hand,"  in 
verse  5.  can  not  refer  to  that  Messiah,  who  is  himself  seated 
at  God's  right  hand,  as  supposed  to  be  said  in  verse  1.  Then 
comes  in  the  same  verse  splitting  or  cutting  in  twain — as  the 
tsrm  m-ichaz  signifies — the  king  on  the  day  of  his  wrath,  fill- 
ing the  land  with  dead  bodies  and  splitting  heads  over  many 
■countries,  in  verse  6,  which  the  English  version  changes  into 
*'  wounding,"  although  it  is  the  same  machaz  as  in  verse  5. 
Is  not  this  the  language  of  a  bloody  war?  Can  this  refer  to 
a  prince  of  peace?  Could  it  possibly  refer  to  the  son  of  Mary, 
of  whom  no  such  or  similar  deeds  are  known,  or  be  even  im- 
aginable, if  his  biographers  did  not  entirely  misrepresent 
hira?  Any  sensible  reader  can  see  that  we  have  before  us  in 
this  a  psalm  written  by  a  warrior  poet  referring  to  a  fierce 
contest  on  the  battle  field. 

Besides  all  that,  the  last  verse  of  the  psalm,  *'  He  shall 
drink  of  the  brook  on  the  way,"  finds  no  application  what- 
ever in  the  life  of  the  Christian  Messiah  :  and  the  whole  in 
language  and  diction  is  entirely  foreign  to  the  genuine  Da- 
vidian  productions,  so  much  so  that  modern  critics  want  to 
make  of  it  a  Maccabean  psalm,  written  under  the  wild 
excitement  of  patriotic  fanaticism,  when  the  exasperated 
Maccabees  fought  the  armies  of  the  Syrian  oppressors.  In- 
deed the  brief  and  abrupt  phrases  of  this  psalm  and  the  fre- 
quent omission  of  copulas  and  connecting  terms  between 
the  members  of  it,  point  to  a  tremendous  state  of  excitement 
in  the  poet's  mind,  such  as  the  nearness  of  a  furious  battle 
only  could  produce.   In  the  life  of  the  warrior  king,  however. 


vs.  PROSKLYTIZING  CHRISTIANITY.  117 

who  fought  all  nations  round  about  Israel,  there  are  un- 
doubtedly numerous  incidents  as  excitable  as  any  in  the 
time  of  the  Maccabees,  and  one  of  them  must  have  been  in 
the  poet's  mind.     Let  us  see  whether  we  can  discover  it. 

Absalom,  we  are  told  in  2  Samuel  xv.-xix.,  incited  a  most 
tremendous  rebellion  against  his  father,  the  hoary  King  Da- 
vid. With  a  large  and  fanaticised  army  the  son  approaches 
the  city  of  Jerusalem,  not  only  to  dethrone  but  to  slay  the 
father,  who,  not  prepared  for  the  emergency,  must  seek  sal- 
vation in  speedy  flight.  Attended  by  a  small  band  of  heroic 
companions  and  trained  warriors,  David  precipitately  leaves 
the  capital  he  had  established,  mourning  and  weeping,  and 
followed  by  a  lamenting  multitude  he  hastens  toward  the  Jor- 
dan, to  cross  it  before  the  enemy  would  overtake  him,  to  seek 
refuge  and  shelter  somewhere  in  the  wilderness,  to  protect 
him  against  the  fury  of  his  own  rebellious  son.  Before  he 
reached  the  Jordan,  Shimei,  son  of  Gera,  comes  out,  insults 
and  curses  the  exasperated  old  hero,  and  he  bears  it  all  without 
a  murmur.  Imagine  David's  state  of  mind ;  it  is  not  described 
except  partially  in  Psalm  iii.  By  the  strategy  of  his  wise 
friends  left  behind  in  Jerusalem,  David  succeeded  in  reaching 
Mahanaim,  east  of  the  Jordan  River,  and  in  gaining  time 
and  succor  for  organization.  Before  Absalom,  with  his  army, 
could  reach  him,  he  had  completed  an  organization  of  his 
forces  and  reinforcements  under  three  chief  captains  to  fight 
the  fratricidal  battle,  David  is  ready  to  lead  his  hosts  in  the 
combat,  but  his  men  would  not  permit  it,  and  said  to  him  : 
"Thou  shalt  not  go  forth,  for  if  we  flee  away,  they  will  not 
care  for  us ;  neither  if  half  of  us  die  will  they  care  for  us,  but 
now  thou  art  worth  ten  thousand  of  us ;  therefore  now  it  is 
better  that  thou  succor  us  from  the  city."  (2  Samuel 
xviii.  3.)  The  king  obeyed.  What  his  feelings  were  when  he 
stood  at  the  gate  of  Mahanaim  to  see  the  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  his  host  marching  out  to  fight  the  horrid  bat- 
tle— what  were  his  hopes  and  fears,  his  anxieties  and  regrets. 
the  hurricane  of  most  contradictory  sentiments  which  up- 
heaved his  soul  can  hardly  be  expressed  in  adequate  words. 
Then  and  there,  perhaps,  at  the  gate  an  inspired  poet,  with 
harp  in  hand,  sang  the  Mizmor  to  David.     A  communica- 


118  A  DEFENSE  OF  JUDAISM 

tion  of  Jehovah  to  my  lord  (the  king),  "  Sit  thou  at  my  right 
hand,"  under  the  protection  of  God  sit  quietly  in  Mahanaim, 
as  the  people  want  it,  "until  I  shall  have  made  (or  put) 
thine  enemies  thy  footstool,"  till  the  battle  is  fought  and 
won,  and  the  enemy  is  subdued,  "  Jehovah  will  send  from 
Zion  the  staff  of  thy  power,  rule  thou  (wilt  again)  in  the 
midst  of  thine  enemies,"  after  the  rebellious  host  will  be  con- 
quered and  scattered.  Now  this  poet  continues  with  giving 
reasons  in  support  of  his  consoling  and  hopeful  message : 
"Thy  generous  people  (or  thy  people  of  generosity — those 
not  engaged  in  this  rebellion)  in  the  day  of  thy  might,  in 
holy  attire  from  the  womb  of  the  morning,  thine  is  the  dew 
of  thy  youth."  (All  those  who  fought  with  thee  and  sup- 
ported thee  in  the  days  of  thy  youth,  when  thou  didst  per- 
form all  those  valorous  deeds,  are  still  with  thee.  This  re- 
fers to  the  heroic  host  that  have  just  left  Mahanaim,  to  the 
succor  he  received  there  from  the  East  (2  Samuel  xvii.  27) 
and  the  thousands  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  that  faithfully" 
stood  by  him  in  the  days  of  peril  at  the  zenith  of  his  power.) 
The  poet  then  gives  a  second  reason  why  the  king  should  be 
hopeful  and  cheerful :  "  Jehovah  hath  sworn  and  will  not 
revoke,  Thou  art  Kohen  (ruler,  2  Samuel  viii.  18)  forever, 
by  my  decree  (Ibid,  chapter  vii.)  art  thou  my  just  and 
legitimate  king."  (God  will  never  revoke  his  decree  which 
made  him  the  legitimate  king.  Aldibrithi  nowhere  in 
Scriptures  signifies  "  on  the  order,"  although  Gesenius  says 
so  on  the  strength  of  this  one  passage ;  in  connection  with 
God  it  only  signifies  decree,  command,  revelation,  propheti- 
cal speech.  Tzedek  signifies  true,  righteous,  as  well  as  just 
and  legitimate.  "  Melkizedek  "  is  not  there  in  the  Hebrew 
text,  it  reads  :  Malki  Zedek,  two  words  connected  by  a  viakif, 
which  may  be  intended  to  refer  to  the  fact  that  David  was 
the  first  kin?  of  Jerusalem,  as  was  the  Malkisedek  of  old  the 
first  king  of  Salem,  while  in  the  main  it  signifies,  "  my  le- 
gitimate king.")  Basing  upon  these  two  pillars  of  strength 
and  hope,  the  love  of  his  people  and  the  decree  of  God,  the 
poet  announces  to  the  king,  "Adonoi  is  at  thy  right  hand, 
who  crusheth  kings  in  the  day  of  his  wrath,  and  judged 
among  populous  nations,  even  he  who  cruslied  the  head  upon. 


vs.  PROSELYTIZING   CHRIST.ANITY.  119 

the  land  of  Rabbah  (Ammon) ;  from  the  brook  (the  Jordan) 
will  he  drink  by  the  way,  therefore  shall  he  lift  up  the  head." 
(He  who  crushed  the  head  of  Ammon  then,  will  lift  up  the 
head,  of  Israel's  king  now,  bring  him  back  to  the  land  west 
of  the  Jordan,  drinking  by  the  way  from  its  water  in  march- 
ing homeward.)  This  refers  back  to  the  beginning  of  the 
psalm,  ''Jehovah  will  send  from  Zion  the  staff  of  thy  power," 
as  also  to  Deuteronomy  xxxii.  39.  Mole  gv,evioth  does  not 
signify  dead  bodies  with  which  he  will  fill  the  places,  as  mole 
signifies  that  something  is  or  was  full  or  filled  without  any 
idea  of  future,  and  guevioth  does  not  mean  only  carcasses  or 
corpses,  it  means  also  living  bodies,  as  in  Genesis  xlvii.  18. 
In  this  case  it  could  only  mean  a  nation  of  many  living 
bodies,  a  populous  nation  only,  as  it  does  not  make  any 
sense  whatever  that  God  will  judge  among  nations  filled 
with  dead  bodies.  A  nation  can  not  be  full  of  dead  bodies, 
and  'places'*  is  not  in  the  text,  but  God  can  well  judge 
among  most  populous  nations  and  demonstrate  his  power. 
That  Nachal  points  to  the  Jordan  is  evident  from  Genesis 
xxxii.  24;  2  Chroni  les  xx.  16,  where  the  Jordan  is  called 
han-Nachal  because  it  is  the  main  stream  of  Palestine. 

And  now  I  leave  it  to  any  professor  of  Hebrew,  to  any 
person  acquainted  with  the  Hebrew  history  and  rational 
canon  of  criticism,  to  decide  whether  my  exposition  of 
Psalm  ex.  is  not  most  natural,  scrupulously  exact,  gram- 
matically correct  and  psychologically  most  likely  and  ac- 
ceptable. If  so  the  Evangelic  conception  of  this  psalm  is 
false,  and  all  arguments  based  upon  it,  together  with  the 
anthropomorphic  phrase  **'  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God," 
falls  dead  to  the  ground.  Anyhow,  every  student  will  be 
bound  to  admit  that  with  such  bait  no  Jewish  fish  can  be 
caught.  The  Hebrew  least  acquainted  with  his  literature 
understands  that  kind  of  at  thlkri  trick,  and  places  no  con- 
fidence in  it.  It  proves  to  him  the  wit,  sagacity  or  dullness 
of  the  preacher.  The  same  is  the  case  with  every  so-called 
Messianic  psalm — there  exists  none — a  little  reflection  and 
investigation  of  the  original  show,  that  all  Christian  head- 
ings of  Psalms  are  radically  false,  and  all  Christological 


120  A    DEFENSE    OF    JUDAISM. 

quotations  from  them  are  utterly  erroneous.     There  is  no 
Christology  in  Psalms. 

I  wrote  aad  published  the  substance  of  this  thirty-nine 
years  ago  in  a  New  York  weekly  called  the  Aswonean.  It 
was  repeated  often  enough — without  my  name — and  none 
has  undertaken  to  refute  it.  But  conversion  agents  must 
and  do  tenaciously  adhere  to  the  old  errors  and  perversion 
of  Scriptures. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

A  RESUME  AND  REFEREXCE  TO  ZACHARIAH. 

THE  method  of  expounding  Hebrew  Scriptures  to  which 
the  authors  and  expounders  of  Christology  resorted  and 
orthodox  conversionists  still  tenaciously  cling,  appears  to- 
day as  erroneous  and  absurd  to  intelligent  Bible  students 
as  does  the  philosophy  of  those  ancient  Hebrews,  who  took 
the  golden  ear-rings  and  nose-rings  of  their  women,  made  of 
them  an  idol,  and,  dancing  around  that  golden  calf,  lustily 
shouted,  "  This  is  thy  God,  O  Israel."  The  Biblical  passages 
reviewed  in  preceding  chapters  fully  prove  the  absurdity  of 
that  method  of  exegesis,  consequently  it  would  be  superflu- 
ous to  discuss  any  more  passages  of  Scriptures,  upon  which 
Christology  bases  its  claims.  The  method  being  false  in 
main  points — as  we  have  seen — it  can  not  be  correct  in  the 
minor  points.  Any  deviation  from  the  straight  line  between 
two  given  points  in  the  same  plane,  and  persisting  in  the 
direction  indicated  by  the  angle  of  deviation,  leads  always 
farther  from  the  objective  point  the  more  the  line  is  pro- 
longed. David  said  :  "  Behold,  he  who  will  conceive  in- 
iquity, be  pregnant  with  mischief,  will  bring  forth  false- 
hood." (Psalms  vii.  14.)  I  do  not  understand  this  to  be  a 
prediction  of  Mary's  case,  although  two  of  the  verbs  are  in 
the  future  tense,  simply  because  I  do  not  believe  the  case, 
nor  that  David  prophesied  ;  but  I  believe  that  it  is  generally 
true.  An  iniquitous  method  of  expounding  Scriptures  also 
brings  forth  falsehood  in  all  cases. 

That  method,  it  seems,  was  iniquitous  at  its  inception,  for 
it  was  adopted  by  men  who  knew  better,  for  dogmatic  or 
ecclesiastical  purposes,  to  support  by  divine  authority 
adapted  incidents  and  dramatized  a  priori  productions, 
when  thev  well  knew  the  process,  and  must  have  under- 

(121) 


122  A    DEFKXSK    ()K    .HDAIS.M 

stood  that  the  Scriptural  argument  was  intended  only  to 
beguile  unsophisticated,  credulous  and  devout  people  to  ac- 
cept the  sham  evidence  upon  their  teachers'  word  and  wit. 
The  ultimate  purpose  may  have  been  good  and  laudable, 
the  primary  purpose,  however,  looks  iniquitous  like  pious 
fraud  and  the  educational  means  in  an  infant  school. 

The  examples  of  adaptation  are  very  numerous.  The 
miracles  in  the  Gospels,  together  with  th3  ascension,  being 
imitations  of  similar  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophets,  have  been  mentioned  before.  The  character  of  the 
main  hero  of  the  Gospels  is  a  careful  imitation  of  Jeremiah, 
with  a  slight  touch  of  Job  features.  It  is  possible  that 
Jesus  studied  those  characters  so  long  and  so  well  that  he 
became  identified  with  them  However,  there  is  nothing 
original  in  it  except  the  conception,  which  is  of  heathen 
origin,  and  the  idea  of  vicarious  atonement,  which  also 
seems  to  be  a  piece  of  exegesis  on  Isaiah  Ivii,,  on  which  the 
rabbis  of  the  Talmud  base  a  similar  doctrine,  not,  however, 
without  showing  that  another  construction  of  that  passage 
is  just  as  probable.  Even  the  report  of  Jesus  resting  two 
days  in  a  sepulcher  and  rising  on  the  third  is  an  adaptation 
of  Hosea  vi.  3.  It  is  difficult  not  to  suspect  the  authors  of 
conscious  adaptation.  That  peculiar  story,  parable,  legend 
or  whatever  it  may  be  called,  Satan  tempting  Jesus  in  a  vile 
and  violent  manner,  is  certainly  no  more  than  an  adapta- 
tion of  Zachariah  iii.,  with  the  only  difference  that  in  Zach- 
ariah  it  is  announced  as  a  vision  and  in  Matthew  it  is 
turned  into  an  alleged  fact. 

Speaking  of  Zachariah,  we  feel  tempted  to  quote  some 
other  incidents  in  the  Gospel  story  which  are  adaptations 
of  a  similar  nature.  The  crucifixion  story,  it  has  been  ob- 
served, is  an  adaptation  from  Isaiah  liii.,  not,  however, 
without  supplementing  the  whole  by  imaginary  incidents 
shaped  according  to  other  Bible  passages,  especially  Psalms 
xxii.  and  Ixix.,  as  shown  in  our  book,  "The  Martyrdom  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,"'  pp.  117  and  118.  Zachariah  had  to 
contribute  quite  a  share  toward  the  Gospel  story,  one,  per- 
haps, best  calculated  to  expose  the  spurious  character  of 
those  incidents.     Zachariah  xiv,  furnished  several  incidents 


vs.  PftOSELYTlZIXG    CHRISTIANITY.  123 

to  the  crucifixion  story.  Because  it  is  stated  there  (verse  4), 
"  And  his  feet  will  stand  that  day  on  Mount  Olives,"  etc., 
therefore  the  principal  scene  in  the  last  days  of  Jesus  ia 
laid  on  Mount  Olives.  It  is  said  there  that  Mount  Olives 
will  be  cleaved  in  two  halves,  and  the  mountains  will  flee 
as  they  did  before  the  earthquake  in  the  time  of  Uzziah  ;  the 
Evangelists  produce  an  earthquake  on  the  crucifixion  day, 
and  Mount  Olive  not  being  split  yet,  they  tell  by  a  little 
stretch  of  exegetic  ingenuity  that  the  veil  of  the  temple  was 
rent  in  twain,  although  this  is  impossible  by  an  earthquake, 
and  the  same  veil  was  there  whole  and  undamaged  when 
Titus  ransacked  and  destro3'ed  the  temple,  not  only  one, 
but  even  two  veils,  as  reallj'  were  in  the  last  temple,  al- 
though the  Evangelist  did  not  know  it.  It  is  said  there 
furthermore  (verse  5),  "And  Jehovah  my  God  cometh,  all 
saints  with  thee."  (God,  with  whom  all  saints  are,  not  that 
they  should  come  with  him.)  And  the  Evangelists  pro- 
duced a  partial  resurrection  on  the  day  of  crucifixion,  the 
graves  open,  the  saints  rise  and  come  bodily  to  Jerusalem, 
and  nobody  besides  the  Evangelists  ever  betrayed  any 
knowledge  of  the  stupendous  miracle.  It  says  there  fur- 
ther (verse  7),  "  And  it  will  be  one  special  day,  it  will  be 
known  to  Jehovah,  not  day  and  not  night,  and  at  evening 
time  there  shall  be  light."  This  is  turned  into  an  eclipse  of 
the  sun  on  the  day  of  crucifixion  by  the  Evangelists.  None 
mention  that  eclipse,  not  even  old  Pliny.  It  gave  orthodox 
doctors  as  much  trouble  as  does  the  star  of  Bethlehem. 
They  were  so  much  enamored  with  Zachariah's  grotesque 
figures  and  tropes,  that  the  Messiah  had  to  enter  Jerusalem 
riding  on  an  ass,  because  Zachariah  said  so  (ix.  9).  The 
king  who  will  come  to  the  daughter  of  Zion  will  be  righteous 
and  saved,  a  poor  man  (and  yet)  riding  on  an  ass,  "  even 
upon  a  young  ass,  the  foal  of  an  ass."  Matthew,  who  did 
not  know  the  parallelism  of  Hebrew  poetry,  has  two  asses, 
and  shows  distinctly  that  it  is  an  adaptation  and  no  fact 
which  he  represents.*   The  very  plainest  of  all  adaptations, 

♦That  passage  in  Zacbariah  ix.,  which  misled  also  Rabbi  Heze- 
kiah.  of  the  Talmud,  to  discover  in  it  a  Messianic  prophecy,  is 
plainly  an  imitation  of  Micah  v.,  and  there  it  is,  no  doubt,  a  mes- 


124  A    DEFENSE    OF    JIDAISM 

perhaps,  is  Luke's  Judas  Iscariot  and  the  thirty  pieces  he 
received  and  cast  into  the  treasur}',  which  is  the  clearest 
adaptation  of  Zachariah  xi.  12  and  13.  If  anybody  should 
be  inclined  to  opine  that  Zachariah  prophesied  the  late  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  he  can  easily  disabuse  his  mind  by  read- 
ing xiv.  8,  to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  It  could  not  possibly 
refer  to  the  son  of  Mary,  although  the  driving  cut  of  the 
money-changers  and  traders  from  the  temple,  as  it  is  re- 
ported he  did,  is  again  no  more  and  no  less  than  an  adapta- 
tion of  the  last  verse  of  that  chapter,  "  And  there  shall  be 
no  longer  a  Canaanite  (or  merchant)  in  the  house  of  Jeho- 
vah Zebaoth  on  that  day."  Therefore,  the  incident,  accord- 
ing to  the  Synoptics,  occurred  during  the  last  days  of  his 
life,  and  according  to  John  several  years  prior. 

Thus  the  Bible  was  turned  upside  down.  The  heirs  of 
this  method  continued  the  work  of  turning  the  Bible  down- 
side up,  which  was  no  less  iniquitous  in  its  inception.  Paul 
started  this  method.  The  theocracy  taught  and  established 
by  Moses  meant  the  democratic  state  with  personal  liberty, 
equality  and  uncompromising  justice  on  earth,  God  only  to 
be  the  king  and  his  law  to  be  supreme,  with  the  most  ex- 
alted humanism  to  protect  the  poor  and  weak,  stranger  and 
friendless,  the  dumb  beast  and  the  fruit  tree.  Paul  turned 
that  whole  magnificent  struc'.ure  of  government  into  a  theo- 
logical kingdom  of  heaven  a?  subtle  as  gas,  banished  free- 
dom, right  and  justice  from  the  earth  by  declaring  the  law 
a  curse  now  abolished,  and  opened  the  gates  widely  to  the 

sage  to  King  Hezekiah,  as  evident  from  verses  4  and  5,  with  the 
only  diflFerence  that  Micah  calls  him  Bi^oshel  and  Zachariah  calls 
him  Melech,  the  former  addressed  him  when  yet  Crown  Prince, 
and  the  latter  when  he  was  King  Eabbi  Hezekiah  did  not 
know,  as  we  do  now,  that  Zacliariah  ix.  to  xiii.  was  not  written  by 
the  same  who  wrote  the  eight  chapters  of  that  book  ;  it  is  the  work 
of  a  much  older  author,  not  only  according  to  the  style  of  that  por- 
tion, but  according  to  the  frequent  references  to  the  kingdom  of 
Ephraim  or  Joseph,  the  glory  of  the  Philistine  cities,  Tyre  and. 
Sidon,  Damascus  and  Hamath,  all  of  which  had  no  existence  in 
the  time  of  Zachariah,  the  contemporary  of  Zerubabel.  He  evi- 
dently was  a  contemporary  of  Micah,  hence  he  may  have  been  the 
Zachariah  ben  Jeberechiah  of  Isaiah  viii.  2. 


vs.    PROSELYTIZING   CHRISTIANITY.  125 

abject  despotism  and  slavery  which  existed  in  Christendom 
up  to  the  very  dawn  of  ou.r  century,  and  flourishes  yet  not 
only  in  Russia  and  Abyssinia,  but,  in  a  little  milder  form, 
in  all  military  and  police  states  of  Christendom.  There- 
fore, Moses,  with  his  democratic,  theocratic  foundation, 
abolished  slavery  and  emancipated  women  in  Israel,  and 
Paul,  with  his  monarchic,  heirarchic,  Messianic  heir  of  a 
throne,  upheld  slavery,  declared  the  inferiority  of  woman, 
and  preached  to  primitive  Christians  servile  respect  for  him 
who  bears  the  sword.  Then  that  turning  downside  up  con- 
tinued almost  endlessly,  until  the  whole  Bible  became  a 
mystic  symbolic  conglomeration,  Jerusalem  is  a  city  in 
heaven,  where  the  angels  and  the  saints  are  encamped.  The 
throne  of  David  was  turned  into  a  throne  of  God,  and  the 
Davidian  dynasty  was  exalted  to  a  progeny  of  God  him- 
self. The  political  institutions  of  ancient  Israel,  minus 
their  democratic  spirit,  were  resurrected  and  remodeled  to  a 
new  church  establishment.  The  mission  of  Israel  to  bring 
God's  truth  and  light  to  suffering  humanity  was  concen- 
trated into  a  fabric  of  salvation  and  transported  from  earth 
to  heaven,  or  to  a  place  from  which  no  wanderer  returns  to 
tell  the  tale  of  his  experience.  The  hopes  of  Israel  for  the 
redemption  and  salvation  of  mankind,  the  triumph  of 
truth  and  goodness,  were  adjourned  to  a  second  advent  of 
the  Messiah,  and  conditioned  by  all  men  believing  the  same 
thing  which  reason  forbids.  The  very  terras  of  Scriptures 
were  evaporated,  rarified,  spiritualized  and  rendered  incon- 
ceivable. The  Zeraseed.  of  Israel,  which  everywhere  in  the 
Bible  means  human  or  even  animal  offspring,  or  vegetable 
seed,  without  any  spiritual  sense,  was  turned  into  spiritual 
seed,  which  must  signify  Jesus;  although  the  prophet  said 
concerning  the  children  of  Israel,  "  And  their  seed  shall  be 
known  among  the  Gentiles,  and  their  offspring  (plural) 
among  the  people;  all  that  see  them  shall  acknowledge 
them  that  they  are  the  seed  (plural )  which  the  Lord  hath 
blessed."  (Isaiah  Ixi.  9.)  The  redemption  of  Israel  from 
Egypt,  Assyria,  Babylonia  and  other  countries  was  changed 
into  a  theological  redemption,  as  the  very  concrete  king- 
dom, throne  and  dynasty  had  been,  and  all  redeeming  had 


126  A   DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

to  be  done  over  again  by  one  redeemer.  After  all  that 
transformation,  transportation  and  translation  were  fc- 
coraplished  in  the  Christian  mind,  it  became  quite  easy  for 
advocates  of  Christology  to  find  Scriptures  for  every  no 
tion,  dogma  or  creed,  especially  if  grammar,  history  andi 
common  sense  are  not  permitted  to  testify  in  the  case  at 
all,  as  we  have  seen  all  the  time.  We  need  not  go  into  any 
further  criticism  of  Scriptures.  All  details  in  this  con- 
nection are  superfluous,  after  it  is  known  that  the  system  is 
erroneous  and  the  methods  iniquitous ;  the  outcome  any- 
where can  be  falsehoods  only. 

This,  however,  is  all  right  and  just  to  the  faithful  and 
orthodox  Christian,  who  first  believes  it  all  because  his  an- 
cestors did  and  all  men  of  his  acquaintance  do  so.  It  is  his 
subjective  knowledge  and  personal  conviction,  so  his  con- 
science was  shaped  and  moulded,  against  which  nothing  can 
be  said.  It  may  also  be  all  right  and  proper  to  the  Chris- 
tian latitudinarian,  who  is  still  a  Christian  in  name,  theist 
or  agnostic  in  fact,  because  he  believes  that  if  Christian- 
born  people  had  not  this  Christianity  tied  to  this  heavy  sand- 
bag of  Christology,  they  would  fly  away  from  all  religion 
and  morality,  and  chaos  would  be  on  hand  ;  as  the  princes  of 
Europe  think,  they  could  not  govern  the  nations  without  the 
aid  of  church  and  priest.  It  may  be  all  right  even  to  those 
fashionable  people  who  own  pews  in  the  most  elegant 
churches  and  believe  iu  nothing,  because  it  belongs  to  the 
good  tone  of  society  to  be  no  infidel,  no  Jew,  no  eccentric 
or  marked  person,  as  they  in  fact  never  reason,  never  care 
for  truth,  and  hardly  ever  think  of  it.  All  of  them  profess 
belief  in  the  New  Testament  story  and  the  Christology  based 
upon  it,  naturally  find  it  everywhere  in  Scriptures,  also  in 
the  Song  of  Solomon,  anywhere,  everywhere.  What  man 
once  believes  he  meets  anywhere.  The  earnest  spiritualist 
meets  spirits.  The  Mormon,  every  sectarian  meets  his  creed 
in  the  same  Scriptures,  but  he  believed  it  first  and  then  he 
discovered  it  in  that  book.  We  would  not  disturb  those 
infidels  even  in  their  belief,  who  maintain  that  the  Christian 
story  is  not  true,  but  the  world  would  have  gone  to  pieces  if 
it  had  not  been  for  Jesus  and  his  disciples,  who  saved  some 


vs.   PROaELYTIZI\(;  CHRISTIANITY.  127 

fragments  of  salvation  anyhow  which  keep  together  the  loose 
and  heterogeneous  elements  of  society  ;  for  this  is  after  all  a 
religious  reminiscence  which  they  retain,  perhaps  the  only 
one  they  have,  and  their  knowledge  of  history  in  its  spirit 
and  evolutions  is  too  limited  to  know  that  the  fate  of 
humanity  at  no  time  depended  on  one  person  or  one  book. 
That  one-man  importance,  a  residue  from  centuries  of  mon- 
archical training  of  minds,  is  no  less  idolatrous  than  man- 
worship.  As  that  savant  said,  if  one  rides  his  hobby 
through  all  the  streets  of  the  city,  let  him  be  undisturbed  ;  if 
he  wants  you  to  ride  with  him,  then  it  is  time  to  resent  the 
indignity ;  and  we  consider  it  sinful  to  molest  others  or  even 
disturb  one  in  his  religious  convictions,  whatever  they 
may  be. 

However,  when  the  officious  conversionist  comes  to  us 
with  his  sanctimonious  wisdom,  and  with  all  fair  or  ugly 
means  seeks  to  impose  on  us  his  Christology,  we  must  re- 
sent the  indignity  and  tell  him,  as  plain  as  language  can 
convey  it,  that  no  intelligent  and  honest  Hebrew  would  re- 
trograde from  rational  Judaism  to  that  negation  of  reason 
which  is  called  Christology.  Its  dogmas  rest  upon  no  logi- 
cal evidence,  because  they  begin  with  exacting  a  faith  con- 
trary to  the  postulate  of  reason  ;  they  rest  upon  no  histori- 
cal evidence,  as  there  exists  none  to  prove  what  Jesus  said 
or  did,  that  he  did  or  said  anything,  or  what  his  biographers 
invented  for  him  a  century  after  his  demise ;  and  taking  all 
that  for  granted,  it  is  still  doubtful  whether  any  one  of  the 
dogmas  is  true,  as  the  variety  of  creeds  in  Christendom,  all 
basing  upon  the  same  story,  sufficiently  proves.  It  rests 
upon  no  Scriptural  evidence  whatever,  as  we  have  proved  in 
the  main  points.  Even  if  our  exposition  of  Scripture  prove 
unacceptable  to  many,  it  proves  anyhow  that  other  than 
Christological  explanations  are  no  less  possible  and  only 
more  natural,  historically  and  grammatically  more  exact 
than  the  Christian  construction.  No  sensible  man  can  ac- 
cept a  religion  upon  such  slender  grounds,  upon  somebody's 
understanding  of  Scriptural  passages,  where  numerous  other 
explanations  are  even  more  likely  and  more  natural. 

Christology  can  never  become  the  religion  of  all  mankind, 


128  A    DEFENSE    OF   JUDAISM 

because  its  teachings  are  contray  to  the  commoii  sense  of 
man,  are  discredited  in  Christendom  to-day,  not  only  by 
infidels  and  philosophers,  but  by  the  sectarians  themselves, 
each  maintaining  to  be  orthodox ;  and  by  the  uninterrupted 
protest  against  that  fabric  of  salvation  by  the  Jews  during 
all  the  years  of  its  existence,  from  beginning  to  end- — a  pro 
test  which  torture,  sword  and  pyre  could  not  silence, 
bribery  and  deception  could  not  alter,  and  the  sum  of  $15,- 
000,000  spent  annually  in  the  mission  societies  does  not 
influence.  Here  is  the  proof  that  Christology  never  can  be- 
come the  Avorld's  religion.  It  can  not  make  us  better  men 
and  better  women,  as  it  did  not  succeed  in  sixteen  centuries 
in  civilizing  and  humanizing  the  nations  under  its  sway  to 
the  altitude,  even,  where  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  stood  ; 
despotism,  slavery  and  lawless  violence  were  characteristic 
of  the  Christian  civilization  till  the  revival  of  letters,  class- 
ical and  philosophical  study,  commerce  and  industry,  till 
bloody  revolutions  against  church  and  state  changed  the 
status  for  the  better,  and  gave  birth  to  the  progress  of  hu- 
manity to  the  present  altitude,  all  of  which  is  of  recent 
birth.*  The  conversionist  must  admit  that  the  Hebrews,  as 
a  class,  in  any  country,  are  as  intelligent,  moral,  industrious 
sober,  honest,  charitable,  liberal,  chaste,  patriotic,  inventive 
and  genial  as  the  best  class  of  their  neighbors  ;  hence  Christ- 
ology is  not  the  mother  of  these  virtues,  it,  can  do  us  no 
good,  it  has  done  more  harm  than  good  to  the  nations  of 
Europe.  It  is  an  excrescence  of  the  religions  idea  and  rep- 
resents the  various  ages  of  darkness,  ignorance  and  priest- 
craft in  past  centuries.     No  Israelite  can  subscribe  to  it. 

As  regards  the  religion  of  mankind,  to  secure  union, 
peace,  freedom  and  sense  of  duty  and  benevolence,  with  jus- 
tice and  humanism  as  the  only  potentates,  the  happiness  of 
man  as  the  only  policy,  we  can  point  to  the  clear  and  un- 
equivocal language  of  the  prophets  and  the  Lud  voice  of 
hietory,  that  it  will  be  denationalized  Judaism,  as  partly 


*  The  Humanists  of  the  sixteenth  century  began  the  work  of  re- 
demption from  the  rude  ascetic  and  priest-ridden  establishment, 
they  were  the  dawn  of  the  day  of  emancipation. 


vs.    PROSELYTIZIXG    CHRISTIANITY.  129 

realized  already  in  Christianity,  the  Islam,  the  philoso- 
phemes  of  most  prominent  philosophers,  the  government  of 
free  rations,  the  reign  of  freedom  and  justice.  This  and 
nothing  more  is  compatible  with  human  reason  as  the  fabric 
of  salvation  in  time  and  eternity,  this  and  nothing  more  will 
it  accept.  This  and  nothing  more  the  prophets  predicted  as 
the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  religious  process.  So  it  re- 
echoes from  every  page  of  prophecy ;  and  Isaiah  closes  his 
book  thus  :  "  For  as  the  new  (created)  heavens  and  the  new 
€arth  which  I  make  shall  remain  before  me,  saith  Jehovah, 
so  shall  remain  your  seed  and  your  name.  And  it  shall  come 
to  pass  that  every  returning  New  Moon  and  every  returning 
Sabbath  all  flesh  shall  come  to  worship  before  me,  saith  Je- 
hovah "  Israel's  seed  and  name,  the  vessel  of  that  eternal 
truth,  is  indestructible,  because  the  cause  is.  Also  its  forms, 
New  Moon  and  Sabbath  for  worship,  are  imperishable.  Pre- 
pare, pious  souls  sufiFering  from  the  idiosyncrasy  of  proselyt- 
ism  to  Christology,  prepare  for  your  conversion  to  denation- 
alized Judaism  ;  such  being  the  will  of  God,  as  you  know,  it 
is  inevitable,  do  it  gracefully,  early  and  thoroughly.  If  you 
know  not  how,  read  the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah  and  follow  his 
advice  :  "  Wash  ye,  make  you  clean  ;  put  away  the  evil  of 
your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes ;  cease  to  do  evil ;  learn 
to  do  well,  seek  judgment,  relieve  the  oppresed,  judge  the 
fatherless,  plead  for  the  widow.  Come  now  and  let  us  rea- 
son together,  saith  Jehovah,  though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet, 
they  shall  bo  as  white  as  snow,  though  they  be  red  like  crim- 
son they  shall  be  as  wool."  This  is  the  best  method  of  con- 
version. 


This  volume  was  published  on  the  author's  seventieth 
birthday,  and  written  during  the  last  months  preceding 
its  publication. 


Works  of  Rev.  Dr.  I.  M.  Wise. 


THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  JESUS  OF 
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